Wikipedia talk:Did you know

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

RFC on QPQ for non self noms

OK, for those of you who dislike abbreviations, QPQ is short for 'Quid pro quo', which is described as "a favour or advantage granted in return for something", in the DYK project, it refers to the fact that when you nominate your own article, you need to review someone elses. DYK, as most people know, refers to the 'Did You Know' section of the main page. The abbreviation 'noms' refers to nominations. Recently, we have seen lots of drive by nominations of other editors' work, the first they hear about it is when they get the credit on their talk page. The general consensus of the discussion seemed to be that something had to be done to stop drive by nominations of other editors work, or even nominations of another editor's work with their permission, with no QPQ required. Listed below are short summaries of various possibilities, please comment, and vote if you so wish in the appropriate section. Please support/oppose/comment on as many as you like, and feel free to add solutions. Matty.007 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

QPQ for any nomination

Solution 1: that any nomination from an editor who has over 5 DYK credits requires QPQ. Easy to check. Matty.007 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• Please get rid of QPQ. It has huge potential for conflict of interest, and it encourages superficial and quick reviewing. It has been a gaping wound in DYK since it was started. Tony (talk) 12:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: you should probably make it clear that the 5 DYK thing also applies to self noms, so this solution simply extends the current QPQ requirements to non-self-noms. (I was a little confused about the proposed solutions until I realised this). -Well-rested^Talk 07:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Votes

Please vote, with a comment if you want, in either support or oppose. Please number votes!

Support

1. I have done a number of nominations of others' work since the QPQ was instituted and in each case, such as here, noted in the nomination that I was exempt as a third-party nominator but did the QPQ anyway because I think it's good for the process and is not a heavy burden, especially for people already well familiar with it having done more than five in the past. However, I do foresee one problem. There may be some individuals who do just a lot of these, multiple per week or even day, and it would be unfair and a burden to make them do a review for each one. Accordingly, I was thinking of an escape valve, a carve out, such as that if you have nominated more than one article for DYK in the past seven days, the meeting of the QPQ requirement for the first nomination covers (or exempts one from the requirement for) all nominations made during the subsequent seven-day period.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. The level of effort involved in finding and nominating a work is similar to that involved in the creation and nomination of a new work. The assertion of undue burden does not seem to have been supported so far.--Kevmin § 16:51, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Per the above. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 16:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
4. As proposer. Matty.007 16:54, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
5. I do concede points made by opposers are valid, but at the end of the day the numbers just don't add up. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Per Fuhghettaboutit... the numbers don't add up otherwise. - tucoxn\^talk 22:59, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support because this simply extends the current QPQ requirements for self-noms to non-self-noms. After thinking about it, I think QPQ is a necessary requirement that has probably helped the DYK process not devolve into yet another extremely backlogged Wikiproject. Since the concern appears to be that people are making a lot of third party nominations for whatever reason without contributing to the DYK process, the logical solution seems to be to simply to extend QPQ to third party noms. -Well-rested^Talk 07:24, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support QPQ should be required across the board. I hate seeing my new article nomination languishing for three weeks waiting for a QPQ while some QPQ-exempt nomination skips by within an hour or two of getting nominated (even more bitter when this happens after I did my required QPQ on a nominated hook whose nominator was not required to QPQ).--ColonelHenry (talk) 23:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose - The QPQ rule was created because of contributors who appeared to be more interested in self-aggrandizement than in contributing to Wikipedia. These were people who nominated their work for DYK, didn't lift a finger to help run the DYK process, and in some cases created chronically bad nominations and/or complained bitterly if their hooks weren't approved (or weren't displayed exactly as they thought they should be displayed). The rule isn't perfect, but it ensures that self-nominators make at least a minimal contribution to the DYK process. In contrast, there's no glory in nominating other people's work. Not only is the effort of nominating another user's article similar in magnitude to the effort involved in doing a review, but the majority of people who nominate other people's work appear to do so for selfless reasons -- and voluntarily involve themselves in administering DYK (for example, by reviewing noms without taking QPQ credit, by building prep sets, or by promoting prep sets to the queues). For such users, the requirement to do QPQ reviews for non-self-noms would be an annoying bit of bureaucracy; adding bureaucracy doesn't benefit either Wikipedia or the DYK process. --Orlady (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose - The greatest DYK editor in my opinion is the person who has done a 1000 nominations of other people's work. As long as no one is forming a club to just nominate each others work then (AGF) we should encourage the nominations of other people's work. I would feel particularly strongly that nominating the work of a newbie should never require any addition load on the nominator and certainly not on the newbie. We need new (and returning) editors. Victuallers (talk) 20:28, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose We should be encouraging people to nominate others work at DYK. It is in my experience a great way to welcome newbies and get a more diverse set of content at DYK. We should not put an additional burden on those who are nominating other people's work. Quid pro quo is itself an anomaly amongst Wikipedia processes and should not be extended to put a greater burden on those who help others to DYK. ϢereSpielChequers 20:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose This is too narrow and would discourage the casual editor who sees the main page invitation to nominate an article. It would also require someone with no working knowledge of the DYK criteria to do a review, one that would almost certainly have to be double-checked by more seasoned editors. — Maile (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose Gaming the system (e.g. what Victualler's talking about) is inappropriate, but as long as people are nominating others' work in good faith, there's no good reason to require that nominators review another one. Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose. Per Orlady. Cbl62 (talk) 04:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose The proposal only makes sense in some bizarro world where DYK is a game and a successful nomination gets you some kind of points. It's kind of sad that such a mind set has taken root such that an RfC like this one would even exist. If you want to lessen the workload at DYK, ban self-nominations. Gigs (talk) 20:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
   1. Per this, you get points for nominations. See bottom section on DYK nominations list. Guess that bizarro world does exist. — Maile (talk) 20:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose People who nominate other people's articles for DYK are a benefit to the wiki. They should be encouraged, not burdened. They not only contribute content; they bring new people into the process. Personally I first learned about DYK when someone nominated an article of mine; up to then I had no idea the process existed or how it worked. Since then I have contributed several dozen of my own new articles to DYK. I do think nominators should inform the article's author when they nominate (not to get permission, but just to engage them in the process), but I think that should be a voluntary courtesy rather than a requirement. --MelanieN (talk) 17:34, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

#Technical oppose. I'd consider supporting but the "easy to check" claim is not elaborated on. I'd think it would be a pain to check. Ping me if an explanation of easiness is given. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:31, 13 January 2014 (UTC)Changing vote.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:54, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

QPQ for nominations of others' work if they have more than 5 credits

Solution 2: that QPQ is required for nominations of others' work if they have more than 5 DYK credits. Again, easy to check. Matty.007 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments

This proposal doesn't make much sense to me, if you want to propose QPQ for non-self nominations, then surely the five-DYK threshold should apply to the nominator rather than the creator, because the nominator is the one required to do the QPQ review. Gatoclass (talk) 15:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I also need clarification. Is this for the nominator having more than 5 DYK credits or for the editor/creator of the article being nominated having more than 5 credits? As I said in my support comment for the status quo, while I have no problem restricting who qualifies for the no QPQ, I think its vital that we still encourage editors to scour the new pages list to seek out work by new editors who have previously not been involved with DYK. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:20, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, this proposal was that QPQ was required if you nominated another editor's work, and the other editor had over 5 DYK credits. Matty.007 17:25, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)This is if you nominate the work of someone who already has DYK credits. (i.e. if you nominated an article I wrote, one of us would have to do a QPQ review)--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 17:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

As noted this is for those nominations that are of DYK regulars/veterans. There doesn't seem to be any indication that this will generate a larger burden then is already required of a self nominator when looking at article creation plus QPQ review.--Kevmin § 17:35, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

It is just about reasonable to expect an editor to know how many DYKs they have written. Is it reasonable to expect them to check someone else's account(s) to see how many DYKs they have before nominating an article they've written? ϢereSpielChequers 21:25, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

The QPQ check is available from any nominated DYK template: all you need to know is person's username. It's a good indication of whether the creator has received DYK credits in the past, and takes a matter of seconds. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Note that this proposal has the additional benefit of actually simplifying the rules: the QPQ requirement is always based on the number of DYK credits for the article's author; no need to complicate the rules with an exception according to who nominates it. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 02:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Votes

Please vote, with a comment if you want, in either support or oppose. Please number votes!

Support

1. This prevents gaming of the system, and in any case the point of nominating someone elses work is to get them into DYK and encourage their work, which if they already have 5 DYK credits, wouldn't be the case.--Gilderien Berate|List of good deeds 17:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support. Matty.007 17:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Support per Gilderien (allthough I don't really know how you check how many DYK credits a user has) Iselilja (talk) 20:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

   The DYK checker. Matty.007 20:14, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

   Um, it's called the "QPQ check" on our DYK nomination template pages, not the "DYK checker". (The page refers to itself as "User cont[r]ibution", and searches for notifications of main-paged DYKs.) BlueMoonset (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

4. Support - The nomination is intended to be for new and returning editors. Lets encourage our gamers to find newbies and bring them to DYK Victuallers (talk) 20:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support. There's no acceptable reason that an article created/expanded by an experienced, multi-DYK user should be exempt from the QPQ requirement, unfairly shifting the reviewing burden to others. A QPQ should be acceptable from either the nominator or the creator. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:16, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Support — Maile (talk) 00:00, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support. Agree with Mandarax that a QPQ should be accepted if supplied by either nominator or creator (or, I suppose, even by a third party if one wishes to do the work involved). BlueMoonset (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Now that the proposal has been clarified in the "Comment" section above - support as it will prevent users gaming the rules by nominating each other's articles in order to avoid the QPQ requirement. Gatoclass (talk) 02:51, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Support. No reason why experienced creators/expanders should be exempt. Struway2 (talk) 10:37, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support - No reason why a QPQ shouldn't be undertaken by either nominator or creator/expander when they are regular DYK participants. I fully understand and appreciate the reasoning behind encouraging new editors (that's how I was drawn to DYK myself but note that a QPQ was undertaken, although not required, by the person who nominated my first ever DYK); as five credits is the figure already used elsewhere, it will standardise/simplify any change. SagaciousPhil - Chat 10:55, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Support per the arguments already made.--Kevmin § 23:35, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Support per Gilderien. - tucoxn\^talk 23:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. This is a minor permutation of the proposal above. My opposition there applies equally here. --Orlady (talk) 02:35, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose As was pointed out by Orlady, this isn't much different from the first proposal. I suspect most of the opposition from above would also oppose this, so a lack of written opposition in this section should not imply consensus for the alternate proposal. Gigs (talk) 20:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose since it is unclear who is supposed to do the QPQ: is it the nominator, or the author who has more than five previous DYKs? If the nominator, then it imposes an undue burden on people who nominate the work of others, as per the suggestion above. If the author, then they are required to participate in the nomination process and it is no longer a third-party nomination; in effect it makes every nomination of an article written by an experienced contributor into a self nom, regardless of who is listed as the nominator. If neither or both are responsible, a nomination could languish in limbo waiting for somebody to do a QPQ, and it would be hard for a reviewer to check if QPQ was done. And how would this requirement work with the QPQ checking bot? And what if the nominator didn't realize that the author has more than five previous nominations, or didn't act on it - does that become an additional thing for the reviewer to have to check? Impractical proposal in many ways. --MelanieN (talk) 18:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

   Either the nominator or creator/expander could do the QPQ I should think. To me, this oppose seems to be based on theoretical queries, which could be ironed out if this became policy. For example, the idea is that you do QPQ when nominating an article, as it is at present. The QPQ credit thing gives previous successful nominations, and would probably be able to stay the same as it is at present. The more than 5 nominations thing would be as much an issue as it is now, and easy to check with the QPQ check. Matty.007 18:55, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

   In your first sentence you say the QPQ could be done by either, but later you suggest that it is the responsibility of the nominator {"the idea is that you do QPQ when nominating an article"). In that case, the people who opposed solution #1 above should be regarded as opposing this also. In effect, this proposal says that the nominator must do a QPQ unless the author/expander of the article has fewer than five previous DYKs; is that a correct understanding? --MelanieN (talk) 21:04, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

   In the nomination of the article, either the creator or expander can do QPQ. As such, the number of opposes here is what it is. Matty.007 21:09, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

   THe nominator would be the logical one to do the reviews, and would alleviate the notable stress that the current status of no qpq needed places on the project. How is a qpq a significantly larger burden on the nominator then article creation/nomination/qpq for self noms?--Kevmin § 23:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

4. Oppose Over-complicated, contrary to WP:CREEP. Andrew (talk) 18:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

   It isn't really complicated; you check if a user has over 5 DYK credits before nominating their work, then do QPQ if they have. CREEP isn't policy, or a guideline, but an essay, and as the essay says ""WP:CREEP" is not a substitute for actual arguments. Lengthy instruction can be appropriate if it represents a broad consensus and does more good than harm". Matty.007 18:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

   It's the opposite of "over-complicated" and eliminates some instruction creep. As I'd mentioned in the Comments section above, this proposal actually simplifies the rules by specifying a consistent criterion for when QPQ is required, eliminating the existing complication of an exception based on who submits the nomination. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:43, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

5. Strong oppose. Perhaps someone could help clarify this, but I don't understand the idea behind this solution. The way I see it (correct me if I'm wrong), DYKs should be nominated based on the article (rather than the author), the QPQ requirement is to help keep the backlog in check, and the 5 DYK requirement (currently for self-noms) is to help ease potential DYK reviewers into the project. How does this solution fit into all this? Doesn't this solution mean that a good new article that would make a nice DYK on the main page won't ever get on the main page simply because the author of the article isn't involved in the DYK process for whatever reason? -Well-rested^Talk 07:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

   The QPQ requirement is so that reviews are actually done. However, QPQ is needed after 5 credits, for all self nominations. This proposal is that if the creator has over 5 credits (i.e. enough to need to do a QPQ is it was self nominated), then the nominator has to do QPQ. Matty.007 09:29, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

#Technical oppose. I'd consider supporting but the "easy to check" claim is not elaborated on. I'd think it would be a pain to check. Ping me if an explanation of easiness is given. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:30, 13 January 2014 (UTC)Changing vote.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:54, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose - I support QPQ's across the board, but I don't think a user should be snagging DYK credits by nominating other people's work. DYK shouldn't allow that kind of star-chasing. A nominator should only nominate his/her own work.--ColonelHenry (talk) 23:53, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose - QPQ on self-nominations is enough requirement. Must I add QPQs on other people's works, even when I often do? --George Ho (talk) 03:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Non self nominations require no QPQ

Solution 3: this is how it is at present, if you nominate any other editor's work, with or without their permission, no QPQ is required. Matty.007 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments

In response to Tentinator, Orlady's comment of "Hunting down other users' good-quality new articles, reviewing them, and nominating them here is a fairly selfless contribution to DYK that should not require quid pro quo" doesn't really stand with Wikipedia's development. It takes all of a few minutes to find an article in this list, and nominate it. Matty.007 15:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I think New pages is another place people search for new articles. — Maile (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

If it takes you only a few minutes to find an article on that list and nominate it, you probably are creating bad nominations. In my experience, nominating other users' articles that appear on that list means that I have to check for eligibility (a lot of articles on that list aren't long enough), read the article carefully, check the sources cited to make sure the source information is properly represented in the article, check for BLP and POV issues, check for copyvio and close paraphrasing, and look at the other Wikipedia articles that are linked in the article. It's also helpful to look at the article creator's history to see if they have a history of problems with copyvios, POV, or other issues. I often do a bit of rewriting before I get to the point of drafting a hook (and sometimes I do some rewriting even though I've decided the article isn't suitable for DYK). In spite of all that effort (which generally exceeds the effort required to do a typical DYK review), sometimes a DYK reviewer will find serious issues that I failed to identify because I wasn't sufficiently familiar with the article topic. People who habitually nominate other people's work without doing the appropriate homework are likely to find themselves under attack from other DYK regulars. --Orlady (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like the effort that most DYK regulars put into the creation of an entirely new article they write, (try finding fossil ant taxonomy articles) which is the self nominated and then having to do a QPQ. The suggestion that there is a significant work load difference between a self nomination and a 2nd partly nomination seems to ignore the effort of writing a balanced article. And if the article is written by a trusted user then the back ground checking that is done would already have been taken care of in prior nominations. It also places a large burden on the rest of the project when others have to step in to take care of the QPQ less nominations which create large backlogs while not providing any reviewed hooks to run.--Kevmin § 07:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• Tentinator, can you expand on the comments you have linked to from 3 years ago in light of the current situation. How is there a distinct work load increase over the creation of an entirely new article plus review of an article?--Kevmin § 16:56, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

• This option (status quo) seems to have several benefits and one big drawback. The big drawback is a greater number of hooks than obligatory reviews for them. The "backlog" this creates doesn't seem to be forever-expanding. Is the burden of reviewing extra hooks falling on just a few dedicated users who work at DYK all the time? As an occasional DYK contributor, I would like to hear a breakdown of how this is happening now from someone who is intimately familiar with the process. Happy new year, and thanks everybody... I feel DYK is a valuable part of Wikipedia for several reasons. groupuscule (talk) 03:10, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• It seems to me that a major problem that is not being addressed by this RfC is the giving of QPQ credit for inadequate reviews. Why do we do this? If the review doesn't cover the DYK requirements—which includes explaining what aspects were checked—then credit should be withheld, plain and simple. The arguments below that we don't want to make nominators who don't do a good job vetting their nominations also do reviews doesn't make sense to me as a long term strategy: if they are also required to do good reviews and don't get credit for bad ones, eventually they'll either learn to do a better job or see their nominations end in rejection, in a less violent aspect of Orlady's "likely to find themselves under attack from other DYK regulars". Nyttend's argument against having nominators do QPQs is really an argument against QPQs altogether: his example of a slipshod review was a QPQ done by the creator of a self-nominated article. I am also not convinced by Tentinator's simply citing arguments from early 2011, when QPQ was first set up: one of the reasons to have an RfC like this is to reassess, three years later, to see how things are working out on the ground. The fact that we have 233 unapproved hooks at the moment is a good indication that something significant is broken, as is the all too frequent review that consists solely of "good to go", or perhaps that the nomination is new enough and long enough (and maybe that the hook fact is cited). BlueMoonset (talk) 08:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with BlueMoonset - the thoroughness of reviews undertaken needs to be looked at, as well as the claiming of QPQ for 'fly-by' reviews. I initially expressed concern on this page about the volume of "not a self nom, no QPQ required" when, over the festive period, it was down to around ten approved hooks with a backlog of well over 200 nominations (these figures are just recalled from memory as ball park figures), no queues/prep areas were filled, which must have been a nightmare for those trying to keep everything running and these were at 12 hour rotations. Added to that there were days when as many as a dozen "not a self nom, no QPQ required" were being nominated. I am not a particularly long standing DYK participant - probably around 15 months? - so was not involved around 2010/11 so cannot comment about decisions then. I do wonder if the "copyvio" check tool should be removed from the toolbox, just leaving the duplication detector as I've only ever managed to get a result from it once and (cringes with embarrassment at the memory) what it detected was a mirror site that had copied from the WP article. SagaciousPhil - Chat 11:12, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, I think 12 approved was right. Matty.007 17:29, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
• A common opposing reason here is that people will do sloppy QPQ reviews. Is this not already occurring? Is it relatively easy to fix with a quick note on the editor's talk page? The reasoning that they would make poor QPQ reviews is, to me, not one that is an issue in this case, if we can help editors making slapdash QPQs into the habit of good reviewing, we have gained a good reviewer. Matty.007 17:58, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
• The backlog issue will always be with us. One major factor in the backlog, as I see it, is that only a few reviewers are brave enough to deal with the old nominations that have been previously reviewed and require re-examination. I have long suspected that people mistakenly think they won't get QPQ credit unless they do the first review of a new hook nomination, so they don't touch old noms like the oldest one currently on the noms page -- one that I believe actually should be pretty easy to approve at this point. --Orlady (talk) 21:13, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Votes

Please vote, with a comment if you want, in either support or oppose. Please number votes!

Support

1. Support per The Bushranger and Orlady's comments here.   Tentinator   15:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support - If you think that's a simple one minute nomination thing, you're mistaken. The results include articles which are too short, or don't have enough references, or aren't neutral, etc. Personal experience suggests that maybe 10–20% of the articles on that list are readily DYKable. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:03, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Support - the nomination requires sort of a review. If someone wants to do a voluntary extra review, even better. I recommend to place the link to the nomination on the article talk page, - that should notify everybody interested including the author(s). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:21, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support - One of the last vestigial remnants of DYK's original raison d'être in encouraging new articles and new editors. While I have no problem with limiting DYK nom/no QPQ to nominators of work by editors who have not been previously involved in the DYK process, I think it is vital to the life blood of DYK to encourage veteran editors to review the new pages list and nominate work from new editors or those previously uninvolved with DYK. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:14, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

   Well that is the problem, Agne, many nominations are simply being plucked from this list, no article reviewing done, and nominated. Matty.007 17:18, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

5. Support - Mostly for reasons already stated above. Additionally, I submit that people who mindlessly crank out quickie nominations of articles plucked from the new-article lists shouldn't be asked to do additional QPQ reviews, since their QPQ reviews probably won't be any better in quality than their nominations. Honest reviews of their nominations should be a much more effective way to discourage that behavior. --Orlady (talk) 19:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Support at New page patrol I look at, categorise, delete, tag for deletion, or simply say meh and leave for others well over a thousand articles for every one which I nominate for DYK. I can just about understand putting a QPQ obligation on those who nominate their own work at DYK, though I note that FAC does not work that way. But I do not accept that we should put an additional burden on those who nominate others work? ϢereSpielChequers 21:13, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support See my comments up above. Orlady makes a very good point: if you're nominating junk from Special:Newpages without checking to see that it's likely to pass, you really really shouldn't be reviewing other nominations. It's much better to have to throw out a few junk nominations than to have to pull junk articles from the Main Page. We shouldn't encourage pro forma reviews that don't review anything. Let's look at a pro forma review of an article I wrote, here: I made a basic factual error in writing the hook, as detailed at the article's talk page (the article said something correct, and the hook said something different), but the "review" was so cursory that my mistake wasn't caught. This is the kind of review that will become more common if we adopt any of the proposed changes. Nyttend (talk) 02:13, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support per Orlady's comments referenced above. Cbl62 (talk) 04:16, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Support If you're scouring the potentially eligible lists (New Pages Feed, AfC promotions, etc.) and nominating only quality articles, then there's no reason to require a Quid Pro Quo but... (see paralell oppose) Hasteur (talk) 20:08, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support per Orlady. Not that I ever have, or ever will, nominate someone else's work, but I do think that others should be able to, without being detailed to do QPQs. Manxruler (talk) 00:44, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Support the status quo, per Orlady. People who conscientiously nominate the work of others are helping the wiki and should not be additionally burdened. People who (for whatever reason) do sloppy nominations will do equally sloppy QPQ reviews, which is no help to the project. --MelanieN (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Support If it works, don't fix it. Andrew (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose: this isn't working, there are lots of nominations, not doing QPQ isn't going to make them any smaller. Matty.007 14:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose: The number of noms of others work has at times in the last few months overwhelmed the number of self noms, creating large backlogs with very few reviewed hooks. This should not be the case, and i dont feel that the effort of finding another's nomination in anyway outweighs the effort of creating an entirely new article. They are a similar amount of work and should be treated the same.--Kevmin § 16:47, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose. There isn't a huge difference between an article you wrote and nominated and an article you simply nominated. There's no reason to be QPQ exempt; the main purpose of QPQ is to avoid backlog, so there's no reason to say "oh, you don't need to do it for THAT." Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 17:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose: — Maile (talk) 23:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose because at minimum I think QPQ should be expanded to prevent users from gaming the system by nominating each other's articles to avoid the QPQ requirement, per the proposal above. Gatoclass (talk) 03:05, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose. My support of an alternate proposal above is implicit opposition to the quid pro quo status quo, but I'm making it explicit. The large number of unreviewed noms that we're frequently burdened with is an indication that the current system is broken. It's not fair that some users may be able to sit back and let someone else nominate for them while neither has an obligation to do any reviews. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 04:08, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose: per my comment above, because people do game the system, and per Mandarax. I also think we need to be more strict with QPQs in general: that they need to cover the DYK criteria and be properly written up per the DYK guidelines in order to receive QPQ credit. BlueMoonset (talk) 08:42, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose: (see paralell support) If all nominators pick other editors work, the entire QPQ system will break down and we'll be left with a mass of DYK nominations and some volunteer having to sort through the nominations. Hasteur (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose per my support above for the proposal above that QPQ should be required if the article is written by someone who has/have more than 5 DYK credits, even if it is nominated by others. Iselilja (talk) 03:09, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose. The current system isn't working. Not sure what the solution is, but proposal 2 above should be a start. Struway2 (talk) 10:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose - as per the comments above. SagaciousPhil - Chat 11:16, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose Makes it more complicated and we need reviewing to keep up with writing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:19, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Oppose: there already aren't enough editors reviewing DYK nominations. Also, adding this will make things unnecessarily more complicated. - tucoxn\^talk 02:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

    Um, there seems to be a misunderstanding. This "proposal" is actually the status quo. --Orlady (talk) 04:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Non self nominations require no QPQ, but creator/expander needs notifying

Solution 4: if you nominate another editor's work, you must invite them to the DYK project, and request their permission (perhaps a lengthening of the 5 day nomination period would need examining as well, for slow replies). Matty.007 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments

This would possibly help get more people involved in DYK. Matty.007 14:54, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

• Why don't we do this automatically - i.e. like the GA process, when a nomination template is created, a bot finds the creator of the page, and sends them a message saying "this page that you created has been nominated for WP:DYK. See the nomination and comment here."--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 15:48, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  • That would probably work, perhaps something which tells them what DYK is, and how to stop it being nominated if they don't want it to be. Matty.007 15:50, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
    • If we use bots, I'd rather the bots not notify self-nominators. Waste of everyone's time. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
      • Yeah, I was thinking it should probably not notify if the creator had a certain amount of nominations as well, since they are probably aware it was nominated. Although maybe not, for 5-times expansions at least, since last year when I did one the original creator had more sources than I did and was able to assist in the expansion.--Gilderien Chat|What I've done 17:03, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment - I have already listed an Oppose below. I believe the creator should be notified. But the way this is worded lumps that in with too much - not requiring QPQ, and asking the creator's permission to list at DYK. Those are three items - no QPQ is already in another section, and asking permission violates WP:OWN. Matty, you might get a lot more "Support" votes for a simplified option that is ONLY to have a bot created that would place a notice on the creator's talk page. Nothing more than that. The bot would say something to the effect of, "[article name] which you created or substantially expanded has been nominated for DYK under [lists date of section where it's listed]". Short and simple, does not require any action from them. They can check it out, or not. — Maile (talk) 17:57, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I did say "feel free to add solutions", as I thought that I would probably miss out something. I will add it soon. Thanks, Matty.007 18:03, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Votes

Please vote, with a comment if you want, in either support or oppose. Please number votes!

Oppose

1. Oppose When you contribute to Wikipedia, you accept that your contributions are in the public domain to be utilized by anyone as they please, so I don't see a need for permission and it would just mean more complication and instruction creep. Notification can be encouraged as a courtesy but I don't think we need to go further than that. Gatoclass (talk) 14:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose Not quite public domain, but every page explicitly states "Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions." in the edit window. That is a statement which editors implicitly agree to when clicking "Save Page" — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose WP:OWN. I do like Gilderien's above idea of a bot. There is no way anyone can stop their work from being nominated for anything. — Maile (talk) 16:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose - Article creators don't own their contributions. Furthermore, the main reasons for nominating other people's contributions at DYK are to enhance and diversify the quality of DYK and to encourage new contributors. Neither of those objectives is advanced by asking the article creators for "permission". --Orlady (talk) 19:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose this would not be a nice way to treat the rare newbie who writes a DYK worthy article. ϢereSpielChequers 21:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose. Notifying the other user is an optional courtesy which should not be made mandatory. The only valid reason I can think of for asking permission would be to see if they intended to nominate it themselves; again an optional courtesy. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose. Notification is good, and I like the bot idea, but there's no good reason to require it. We have so many rules that adding more is generally a bad idea, and this is no different. Nyttend (talk) 02:19, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose. While I think it's rude not to notify someone that you're nominating an article they've created—among other things, there's a good chance that if issues are found they may have to take care of them because they know the topic better than you do—I don't think we should require it, and offering the creator veto power is going to far. It makes especial sense to notify if the creator is a DYK regular, however, because there may be very good reasons why the person considers the article not ready for prime time, so the courtesy of telling them you plan to nominate the article may save a problematic nomination from being started in the first place. (It may also prevent hard feelings if the person was holding off in order to get the article to a certain level before nominating it, only to be preempted.) BlueMoonset (talk) 03:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose. I think notification is a courtesy to be encouraged. Seven years ago, when I was a relative newbie, someone placed a bit of boilerplate on my talk page saying an article I'd written looked good enough to appear on the main page, and here's where to go to suggest it. So I did, and it was, and I thought how great it was to have my work appreciated like that. Don't know if they'd have nominated it themselves if I hadn't, the procedures were different then. But we can't require permission to be asked. Struway2 (talk) 11:03, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose. As a courtesy maybe, but don't mandate it because as Gatoclass said, you release your contributions to be freely edited and used in any way that people see fit. if anything, it should be considered a compliment that someone else has thought highly of your work and wants to share it with the world. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 11:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose as a requirement, Support as an expected courtesy. Not to get permission (the creator doesn't own the article), but to engage them in the process. The author might have valuable input about the hook or the article, and if there are questions or problems, the author is the best person to deal with them. And if the author is a relative newbie, it could be eye-opening for them to discover the DYK process. It certainly was for me. --MelanieN (talk) 17:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose. MelanieN makes the point very cogently - we should aspire to engage the article creator, but it should certainly not be mandatory. From my own experience, getting involved in the DYK process has helped me create better content, and I'm now trying to pass on my experience to others. Edwardx (talk) 22:44, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Oppose worst of both worlds - comes across as narky but possibly without benefit of review. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:22, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Creator/expander requires notifying

A bot would notify an editor if an article they had created/expanded was nominated for DYK by someone else. Matty.007 18:07, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• IMO, a bot is the logical way to go with this. It streamlines the process, and nobody has to remember, or learn, to do it on each nomination. — Maile (talk) 21:52, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Once this whole long RFC closes, if nothing else comes of it, I hope the bot becomes a reality. I believe @Matty.007:'s original concern was notification . Chain Reaction (sculpture) is an example of why an article's creator should be given a chance for input. Not for ownership, but for perspective on whether or not the article was ready. In the case of Chain Reaction, it had been a "review in progress" since Dec 22, 2013, with no input by the nominator. The article was not finished and, in the long run, was unstable and subject to a dispute by city and county officials. It has finally been rejected as unstable. — Maile (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that would be OK, what will likely be needed is a whole new section on what the RFC did (and didn't) achieve. Thanks, Matty.007 19:38, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• While it would be a courtesy, I don't believe people should be nominating other editor's work.--ColonelHenry (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Votes

Support

1. Support - Basic courtesy to do this, I think. — Maile (talk) 18:12, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Fine by me. Gatoclass (talk) 18:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
3. If it is done by a bot, I can Support. If not, I would oppose because if it is an "expected courtesy", what difference is there than if it is mandatory to do it? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 21:12, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support: this is one of my pet issues; articles being nominated without the creator's knowledge. Matty.007 19:38, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK is not a video game, but if you insist...

As I alluded to above, the entire mindset that leads to this kind of thinking is flawed. It is only in the context of "editors can get DYK 'game points' with less work by nominating other's articles" that this RfC even makes sense. Thinking of DYK as a game is mostly benign, and results in the creation and expansion of articles, but only up to the point that the game aspect of it damages the mission of DYK. When we've come to the point of having an RfC that seriously proposes punishing editors for highlighting DYK-worthy work by other editors, things have really gone off the rails.

If we insist on the "game" mindset, then just don't give same sort of "credit" to the nominator and the author. Have one sort of "author credit" and a different sort of "nominator credit". Then those who are keeping score (however inadvisable that may be) can be happy that those who merely nominator and rarely author are not getting the same sort of credit as someone who writes articles and nominates, who would get both sorts of credit on a self-nom. Gigs (talk) 20:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

That is already happening. You get either a credit for 'creating or expanding' or for nominating. Matty.007 20:39, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Those "credits" are, fundamentally, nothing more than notifications that a hook has made it to the main page. It's interesting to keep a log of them, but there's something wrong if you are listing them on your CV or trying to trade the "credits" for cash or Bitcoins... --Orlady (talk) 21:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

So that is why I didn't get that job I applied for...... Harrias ^talk 22:32, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you can negotiate for Bitcoins...--Orlady (talk) 05:43, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I had a few more thoughts, keeping in mind my limited experience with DYK:

1. Non self-nom basically is a review. Someone other than the author is saying that they think the article qualifies for DYK and is suggesting a hook. If editors are doing non-self-noms wrong, then they have no business being reviewers for other hooks, period. If there's a problem with bad non-self-noms en masse, then trout those editors instead of trying to contort the rules to force the sloppy editors to extend their sloppiness to even more hooks.
2. A backlog is not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you have enough hooks to promote, does it matter that you had a larger selection of them to choose from? I know eventually it would become a wheat and chaff issue, but like in the first point, that should probably be addressed with the use of fish. Gigs (talk) 18:54, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Well the second is a problem. Over Christmas, we had 12 hooks ready for promotion. That is critically small, we really don't want prep builders to be having to do extra reviews because there are 20 nominations which haven't done any QPQ because they aren't self nominations. Also, as has been said, the effort of actually making an article, then doing QPQ for nomination is much more than simply reading an article once or twice, and nominating it. Matty.007 19:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

If the en-masse nominator were subject to QPQ, would they actually do more reviews, or just nominate less or none? I know if you all add QPQ for non-self-noms, I'd just stop doing them. I'm not comfortable enough with DYK to consider myself qualified to do reviews. Gigs (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I would favour QPQ needed for nominations of editors' work if they had over 5 credits. The thing is, the nominator, who would likely/definitely know how DYK works, would potentially nominate less, but would review more, so the process would be slicker, rather than nominations from a month ago needing a review still. Matty.007 19:34, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Actually Gigs makes an interesting point when he describes a non-self nom as basically a review in itself. Perhaps what we could do is allow non-self nominators to review most of the DYK criteria themselves in these noms, apart from the hook? Non self nominators are after all, likely to be just as independent from the article creator as any other reviewer. The hook reviewer might then only be required to verify the hook itself, along perhaps with some other basic criteria - say length, date, and cites. An approach like this could substantially increase the review rate. Any thoughts? Gatoclass (talk) 14:53, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea. Additional eyes are often beneficial, though. A few of my nominations of other users' work were found to have issues I had overlooked -- most significantly, by a DYK reviewer who had access to sources that I couldn't see and found copyvio issues related to the use of those sources. --Orlady (talk) 15:24, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

More eyes are always better but the fact is that a substantial proportion of nominations only have one reviewer in any case and under this system, at least two users would be reviewing in every case, though they might be responsible for reviewing different aspects. Gatoclass (talk) 16:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I stopped short of suggesting this because some editors in the discussions leading up to this said they suspected collusion/borderline meatpuppetry abuse of non-self-noms. I don't know how serious that issue is. The potential benefit from partial self-certfication of non-self-noms might outweigh the hassle of dealing with a couple editors who might abuse it. Since it's all public, eventually abuse would be detected. Gigs (talk) 15:44, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I do think an approach like this would have to be contingent on proposition #2 above succeeding, which would prevent users gaming QPQ by nominating each other's articles. But assuming that proposal succeeds, I think this idea has potential. It might mean the non-self nominator may need to be a little more careful but that wouldn't be a bad thing to encourage, and accountability for this kind of review would be pretty straightforward as sloppy reviewers could be banned from making more non-self noms for a limited period, something that isn't possible for self-noms as users can keep their own articles in a sandbox waiting for any ban to expire. Gatoclass (talk) 16:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Lame hooks

Colleagues, what exactly makes the following three hooks acceptable out of what are currently six hooks in prep area 4?

• ... that Stewart Mell scored Scarborough's first goal in the Football League?
• ... that David Bosco served as deputy director of a joint United Nations–NATO project on refugee repatriation in Sarajevo?
• ... that the Gratiot County Courthouse, a Classical Revival structure, was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1957 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976?

I'm interested to know why these weren't flagged much earlier in the process so that nominators and others could search their articles to find something that adheres to the rules for hook interest.

Tony (talk) 09:43, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Personally I think it's quite interesting that Stewart Mell was the first man from his club to score a goal in the Football League, and I wouldn't term that a "lame hook" at all. Bencherlite^Talk 09:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Requires in-house knowledge to "get" it. I still don't get it. This is up for exposure to millions of hits worldwide from people who are not experts. Why is it opaque? Tony (talk) 09:50, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
    • Just because one doesn't get it doesn't mean that others don't as well. I hardly think it's in house knowledge to know about football. Besides if it was, everyone would need in house knowledge for every hook. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:55, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
    • (e/c) What don't you "get"? He was the scorer of the club's first goal in the Football League - of all the goals that the club scored in the Football League, he scored the first of them. Not sure how else I can put it, but if that's not clear enough but your curiousity has been awakened, you can read the article for the full story. No expertise required here, surely? Bencherlite^Talk 09:57, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
      • Agree with Bencherlite on the first one. The other two are not that interesting, but I don't have issues with them running. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
      • I agree with Bencherlite et al on this. "Interesting" is one of the most subjective and problematic requirements, I for one think it needs to be removed. Everyone has a different set of interests, and everyone will see a hook with different eyes.--Kevmin § 12:51, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
      • Agree also with Bencherlite et al. If a topic is specialised, we can't explain background in 200 chars to all who don't know. If it's interesting to some, it's interesting enough. It's desirable to be attractive even to people who don't know the topic but nothing that could be required. Example: the first hook on my user page, BWV 154: trying to attract people not interested in Bach cantatas by a cute quote. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:18, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
        • I agree with Bencherlite on the Stewart Mell hook; it doesn't excite me, but there is an eager audience for that kind of hook. As for the David Bosco hook, I agree with Tony. It's not particularly interesting -- and I don't find anything in that article that I would consider worth using as a DYK hook. The Gratiot County courthouse hook is also profoundly uninteresting, and the article has some other facts that seem a lot more interesting than the dates of register listings. Neither the Bosco nor the Gratiot article were self-noms, so it looks like we may have some over-eager nominators whose judgements aren't awfully good. --Orlady (talk) 15:16, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
          • I find the first hook uninteresting, but that is only because I'm not interested in soccer. Many hooks only interest a specific audience - my DYK hooks are probably mostly only interesting to Pennsylvanians for instance. Right off the bat I can see some better hooks for the courthouse: if the twisted column is so unusual, why not mention that? Can the hook be changed? --Jakob (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
• No: you are not getting it. Someone had to score the first goal. Why is it remotely interesting that this particular person did? You could just as well say that "DYK that John Smith score the first goal ...". Well, so what? It's a laughably bad hook.

• Tony (please sign), just like someone woman had to be the first female film director, it's not the fact that such a role was filled, but who filled it. That's the interest. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Crisco, it might be of vague interest within the article, but not as an isolated fact on the main page out of all context; there, it's totally flat. But I'm gobsmacked on looking at the sentence from which it was drawn:

  "Mell scored Scarborough's first goal in the Football League,[13] on the opening day of the 1987–88 season, a 2–2 draw at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers marred by £20,000-worth of damage to the ground, fighting on the terraces, 54 arrests, and a visiting supporter falling through the roof of a stand."

  Um, the rest of the sentence is far more hook-worthy than what was chosen, and the hook is only 112 characters long. Who is running this show??? Why not:

  ... that Stewart Mell scored Scarborough's first goal in the Football League in a game marked by 54 arrests for riotous behaviour by the crowd?

  That is interesting even in isolated context. Tony (talk) 12:40, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a very good proposed alt hook Tony, perhaps you could consider proposing alts for our weaker entries a little more often? Good hook writing is a skill that not everyone has, the nominations page could certainly use a few more competent contributors in this department. Gatoclass (talk) 14:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

What we need is a series of examples of lame hooks, then a link to the article as it was with hints on how to search for a better hook, then you click to see the revised hook. Tony (talk) 02:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I've been thinking about authoring a guide to good hook writing for a while, it's probably time I got started on it. Gatoclass (talk) 06:13, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Gatoclass, do you mean like this? Tony (talk) 12:52, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Not exactly. I'm familiar with your own essays on good prose and I've found at least one of them very useful (haven't read them all) but although I think the "exercise" approach is good in some circumstances, in others I find it a bit disruptive - though I suppose, assuming I get round to completing this essay, that a set of practice exercises at the end of it might not go astray. Gatoclass (talk) 17:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Is this hook from 7 January 2014 a good candidate for Exercise B (or Z?): ... that Arzu Karabulut currently plays for both German and Turkish football teams? --PFHLai (talk) 13:27, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

It's unclear without checking through the article for better possibilities. But prima face the point that one player plays for TWO prominent teams, one a national team, is in isolation looking more hookish already (could be stronger, but if not, I'd probably pass it, just). It contrasts with the assertion that player X kicked the first goal in game Y ... so what? Tony (talk) 14:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it normal for any footballer good enough to play on a national team to play for a second team somewhere, either professionally or at the college level? It might be hookish if the two countries are at war, or very, very far apart. Germany and Turkey? I'm scratching head. And it was the final hook, which was supposed to be the kicker. Maybe it was reverse psychology? I had to click to find out why such a regular, ordinary thing is hook material. But that's just me.

BTW, I also find those first/last/most/xyz-est hooks interesting. I like reading about those breakthrough moments. --PFHLai (talk) 02:09, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Please consider using ALT1 for the Gary Loveman article instead of the hook currently on Prep 3. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 11:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

No one had reviewed the ALT hook that you proposed for Gary Loveman. The hook I promoted was the approved hook. Your campaigning did, however, lead me to review your ALT hook and replace the hook in the queue shortly before it was scheduled to go to the main page. --Orlady (talk) 16:15, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Orlady. --PFHLai (talk) 00:13, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Respectfully, Tony, this just looks liks another set of hooks that don't interest you personally. I don't see any problem with them myself. For example, the Stewart Mell hook does draw me to him because I can infer from the hook that he's a very old dude and I'm interested to see what football was like back in those days.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:31, 10 January 2014 (UTC) Comment withdrawn. I'm not sure what point I was trying to make. The idea of trying to trawl articles for better hooks than those proposed (such as the one about the 54 arrests) is a good one, although as usual there's a question over how to administer such a thing within an already overburdened community.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Gato et al.: I think your training resources need to be beefed up. To start with, their very existence would send a signal to newbies and non-newbies that we expect good hooks. The page I started I really didn't intend completing ... over to anyone here to do more on my subpage and transfer to DYK space whenever. I believe it should have an effective lead section, perhaps containing the information Gato wants to convey (with good links to DYK rules, other places, etc). Four or five click-and-show exercises could be part of it. I worried that the one I provided is a bit long, and might not be suitable as the first one. Ideas for other exercises are one that links to the article alone and says: find a hookable fact; hint; possible solution(s). And one or two that present only the hook, but need trimming back to the character limit. These are all component skills. Tony (talk) 03:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I have to side with these hooks wallowing unoriginal, uninteresting yawn-inducing lameness. Almost about as langweilig as that one from a few months ago about a US historic register district being so big that it had to be divided into a "north" historic district and "south" historic district. --ColonelHenry (talk) 19:53, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Time sensitive DYK linked to RD for Sir Run Run Shaw

Template:Did you know nominations/Tianyi Film Company has been approved and is ready to go. It's time sensitive as it's a tie-in with the recent death of Sir Run Run Shaw. It'd be great if it could be promoted to the queue ASAP, before the RD goes off the main page. Also, I'd greatly appreciate it if the image could be posted, as the RD entry does not include a photo. -Zanhe (talk) 04:23, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

@PFHLai:, thanks for getting it done so quickly! -Zanhe (talk) 18:04, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Admin needed for queue adjustments

In Queue 1, the sixth hook was adjusted to reflect the article's move from Transformer Book Duet to Asus Transformer Book Duet, but the two DYKmake templates were not also adjusted—they need to be fixed. The new versions should be:

•   Asus Transformer Book Duet – Ross Hill (give) (tag) – View nom subpage
•   Asus Transformer Book Duet – Newyorkadam (give) (tag) – View nom subpage

In Queue 2, the only two bios are the first two hooks. Since hooks are supposed to be varied within sets, bios shouldn't be adjacent; the second, for Maureen Chiquet, should be moved down at least one slot, and other adjustments may be needed. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:14, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• Done both. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:19, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Repeat copyvio, no check

Has DYK instituted yet a means of notifying reviewers whose reviews are faulty? After BlueMoonset pinged me to check a medical article, where I found substantial copyvio:

• Template:Did you know nominations/Intercostal nerve block

I also checked another DYK by Aleksa Lukic

• Template:Did you know nominations/Aeromobil

which also had cut-and-paste, but was passed by BabbaQ. Considering the number of times I've found repeat copyvio at DYK, would it not be time to institute a procedure whereby somebody somewhere keeps a list of reviewers who shouldn't be reviewing and nominators who shouldn't be nominating? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:07, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I think being banned from reviewing is harsh, we all make mistakes. Matty.007 17:10, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

You can't just institute a blacklist because someone did that. Yes there may be some serial copyvioers but the majority are probably either new editors or made a mistake (or even their edit coincidentally ended up being the same, I know that has happened to me before) You can't just have a kneejerk reaction, there has to be a carefully considered discussion on what should be done and I don't feel that instigating a blacklist is the right way to do it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:11, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

@ Matty, where did I mention "banning"? If records aren't kept, and no one is accountable, how would anyone know if there is even a problem warranting a discussion of potential "banning"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment I am sorry for my violations, and I will never repeat it again. However, I do not agree that all of my contributions are systematic violation of copyrights. I have created as many as 38 articles, and most of them are my own translations, so copyright violation doesn't apply there. I only violate copyrights policy because I still don't speak English at that level so I could choose every word on my own, I tried as much as I could to use different words, as you can see in some SandyGeorgia's examples, but in some places I was unsure. I learned my lesson, and I agree I did wrong at the Intercostal nerve block page, and I will never do that or anything like that again. I can see here that most of the time, SandyGeorgia isn't really friendly, so I don't know the grammar, or don't speak that fluent English, but that's not a reason to denigrate my entire contribution (of whose very small percentage includes content building). Sincerely, Alex ^{discussion ★} 17:37, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The C of E, the question remains: what processes has DYK put in place for notification of faulty review, tracking, and managing a long-standing serial problem, to help prevent more of same. I know copyvio here is pretty much only detected when BlueMoonset or Nikkimaria do the checking, which allows serial issues to continue undetected until, as in this instance, I happened to be pinged in on a medical check.

Followup on this instance at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2014 January 13. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Time sensitive question for Fore River Shipyard

Would Fore River Shipyard be eligible for a 5K expansion hook? I have worked on and off on it for the past few weeks due to the holidays and life, but I wanted to know if it is, since I have finished expanding it, and could create a multi hook by expanding a few other subjects related to the yard. Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

DYKcheck says "Assuming article is at 5x now, expansion began 35 edits ago on December 23, 2013," which is (unfortunately) a lot more than 5 days ago. --Orlady (talk) 03:47, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I expanded Loring Air Force Base in sixteen days, and that was allowed alongside multiple articles, so that is why I was asking. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:20, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

I've compiled a new set of 38 nominations that need reviewing. Five of them are from November, so please take a look at them if at all possible. Thanks as always for your reviews.

• November 3: Template:Did you know nominations/Violence against doctors in China
• November 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Church Clothes 2 (two articles; but one issue to be solved)
• November 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Roast Busters (BLP specialist requested)
• November 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Serafín Zambada Ortiz
• November 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Linn Isobarik
• December 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Dan Tan Seet Eng
• December 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Prié blanc (second opinion)
• December 7: Template:Did you know nominations/Musikhjälpen
• December 7: Template:Did you know nominations/Volleyball in the Philippines
• December 8: Template:Did you know nominations/Aurora Film Corporation
• December 9: Template:Did you know nominations/Horseracing in the Philippines
• December 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography
• December 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Carleton Washburne
• December 12: Template:Did you know nominations/Por Amarte Así
• December 14: Template:Did you know nominations/Freedom and Unity Front
• December 14: Template:Did you know nominations/Seyhan Gündüz
• December 14: Template:Did you know nominations/List of New York Islanders players
• December 15: Template:Did you know nominations/Mehdi Jomaa
• December 15: Template:Did you know nominations/Nina (Xiu Xiu album)
• December 16: Template:Did you know nominations/Andrew Stevovich
• December 17: Template:Did you know nominations/Gander Green Lane (two articles)
• December 17: Template:Did you know nominations/List of songs written by Bonnie McKee
• December 18: Template:Did you know nominations/John Wainwright Evans
• December 19: Template:Did you know nominations/Dump months
• December 19: Template:Did you know nominations/Herb Connolly
• December 20: Template:Did you know nominations/Tugboat Trabajador (1931)
• December 20: Template:Did you know nominations/Acme (steamboat)
• December 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Linda Taylor
• December 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Esquiline Treasure
• December 21: Template:Did you know nominations/George Burditt (writer)
• December 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Embassy Court
• December 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Donald R. Dwight
• December 22: Template:Did you know nominations/Who’s Bigger: Where Historical Figures Really Rank
• December 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Lo Nuestro Award for Tropical New Artist of the Year
• December 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Cyclone Amara
• December 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Swill milk scandal
• December 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Ri Ul-sol
• December 24: Template:Did you know nominations/BK grilled chicken sandwiches

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) 23:51, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs

A few editors who have passed the 25-DYK mark have not yet received their "medal". I wonder if an admin could take care of this. (I remember how important that recognition was to me, and I had to ask for it, too.) Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 09:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Where is it written that only administrators can give out these "medals"? The page says "These awards may be given by any user"; I think that only one of my "medals" came from an admin. --Orlady (talk) 16:28, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks. I never read down to the bottom of the page! Yoninah (talk) 22:32, 15 January 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 #4 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) 14:14, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Electronic surveillance and the day we fight back proposal

There is a proposal, gathering support, at User talk:Jimbo Wales#The Day We Fight Back in which the main page on 11 February is devoted to articles related to the subject of electronic surveillance. This would potentially include DYKs. If there are any on the subject pending review, it may be worth holding back publishing them, as we do for April Fools. If this proposal doesn't in the end go through, there's no harm in such articles appearing later. A draft discussion was set up at Wikipedia:The Day We Fight Back. CMD (talk) 15:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Came here to say what CMD said-- The Wikipedia community needs the expertise of the veteran DYKers over at Wikipedia:The Day We Fight Back#Did You Know, where we are soliciting good global-surveillance-related DYKs. --HectorMoffet (talk) 04:36, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry, DYK is not to be used for political campaigns. We maintain neutrality on all issues. Iselilja (talk) 04:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

  Please do be neutral. What we are trying to do is coordinate a variety of neutral articles related to a timely topic to appear at a similar time. The issue will be in the news and at the front of people's minds. As a good website, we try to anticipate what information people will be interested to know, and give it to them. Jehochman ^Talk 04:55, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

  The campaign obviously isn't neutral. What do you expect a neutral article to look like? Even if it only describes the campaign, that's promoting it, and therefore not neutral. HiLo48 (talk) 05:01, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

This proposal for DYK is related to Wikipedia taking part in a protest against electronic surveillance. Featuring a lot of articles on the topic as part of a political protest on Wikipedia's part will indeed violate the neutrality of Wikipedia. The protest and the handling of content on Wikipedia, including choosing what shall be chosen as featured content, must be kept totally separate. Iselilja (talk) 05:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

While I sympathize with HiLO above, the logical extension of that argument is to ask something like "What's up with T:TDYK#February 7 through February 23 (2014 Winter Olympics)? That's promoting the Olympics and is therefore obviously not neutral." Which is obviously ludicrous. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:16, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The Olympics is not a political campaign. Your analogy is ludicrous. HiLo48 (talk) 05:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Of course it isn't, but by holding hooks for the event, we're promoting it and therefore not neutral.

Don't get me wrong, I'm playing devil's advocate and don't personally believe what I'm saying. But where should the line be drawn? How promotional does it have to be before the line crossed? How do we define that line? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:24, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Three major differences with the Winter Olympics

• The olympics is a much begger events in ordinary media than this surveillance protest guaranteed will be, so there are more «journalistic» reasons for Wikipedia to cover it extensively
• The core of the olympics is not political and the event is meant to be polical neutral (allthough not without some political connections)
• Wikipedia is not linked to the Olympics or any protests against it. We are an independent source for the olympics, while we clearly can not be an independent source for a protest we take part in.

Iselilja (talk) 05:31, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• They are starting to making neutral hooks over at Fighting Back. Here at the two first nominations, to get an impression of what their idea of neutrality looks like

• ... that the current Director of National Intelligence James Clapper falsely testified under oath that the NSA did not collect data on hundreds of millions of Americans?
• ... that during the 2013 Papal Conclave, the NSA reported targeted Cardinals choosing the next pope? Among those spied upon was Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis.
• Laughing my behind off, here - honestly. Iselilja (talk) 05:41, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• We also get this little gem from the campaign "The normal "5 day" rule for expansion and nominating is not followed". Speechless. Iselilja (talk) 05:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

And HectorMoffet added it to the 2014 article here. HiLo48 (talk) 06:18, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I copy-pasted most of that content from the April Fools Day pages on the same topics. So obviously there will be some things worth changing - things that don't apply anymore for this particular project. We have s friendly all-hands-on-deck approach, so if you want to contribute your own ideas or help us decide the rules of how dyk should be orchestrated, please go ahead. We welcome your help with open arms. :)--06:41, 15 January 2014 (UTC)Coin945 (talk)

• I strongly oppose this idea. It fails NPOV and gives undue weight to The Day We Fight Back. I looked at some of the DYK hooks and they appear to kind of attack the NSA. This could be OK under normal circumstances, but running seven NSA-attacking hooks at once, with an NSA-attacking article and other anti-NSA articles? No. If we want the main page to have a theme on certain days (which is not inherently a bad idea), the selected articles should cover both the good and the bad. --Jakob (talk) 14:08, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Remember the media storm about Gibraltarpedia and that should tell us not to accept this proposal. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 14:13, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Response to King jakob: "I looked at some of the DYK hooks and they appear to kind of attack the NSA". Yes, those are some of the suggestions on that page. And yes, I agree with you - they could be interpreted as pointed, editorialised, and even attacking. So I will not be voting for those. And neither will you (I'm assuming). If you have an idea of how it sshould be done, then please help us out. We are a bunch of random people coming together to try to sort this project out. I have no experience in DYK and neither do many of the others. We are throwing stuff at the walla dn seeing what sticks so of course some of the ideas will be rubbish. But that's part of the revision process. If you think "the selected articles should cover both the good and the bad", and have some great ideas for what those articles should be, please please please add them to the page.--Coin945 (talk) 14:57, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
    • @Coin945: I still think that filling the main page with NSA content could be undue weight. A single piece of NSA-related content on the main page (not an attack page please) could be appropriate. --Jakob (talk) 17:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
      • It's not about strictly about *NSA*. We're going for anything even remotely relevant or connected. Something to do with freedom of speech. An espionage story. Something to do with censorship. Privacy issues. Use and abuse of power (like the Magna Carta). There are so many different places this could take us - such a wide range of topics that can be explored under the umbrella of "NSA-related content". But having a loose theme on the main page, I think, would be pretty cool and we should do it more often. At least then all the fractured taskforces that work for the main page will finally be forced to collaborate on a weekly basis as opposed to be completely seperate and often opposing.--Coin945 (talk) 17:19, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

This is the key proposal wording DYK needs to consider

Below is the wording on the proposal linked above. (Bolding is mine). I don't know if this can be orchestrated, or not, without approval here on DYK. But DYK people certainly should weigh in on this one. The question also arises as to what kind of precedent this sets for any future dialogue by an individual, or group of individuals, who want to toss the DYK rules and use year-old articles to promote/make a statement about one thing or another. — Maile (talk) 12:41, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: this proposal was mostly copy/pasted from Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know, which was the template for the DYK section of this project.--Coin945 (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK articles are typically allowed to be taken from the year prior to February 11th, as long as they have not previously been featured on DYK. The normal "5 day" rule for expansion and nominating is not followed. The article generally must be created between last February 11th and next February 10th, or have been significantly expanded since last February 11th. (flexible?)

All other Wikipedia rules and guidelines still apply. Pay special attention to Wikipedia's Biographies of living persons guidelines if your hook relates to a living person.

Oppose - DYK process is misrepresented by the above statement from the proposal. I don't know of any incident where a DYK hook is taken from a year-old article that was not otherwise recently expanded, or recently passed Good Article status. In fact, DYK rules that ARE followed state: DYK is only for articles that, within the past five days, have been either

• created
• expanded at least fivefold
• newly sourced and expanded at least twofold (only if the article was an unsourced BLP)
• promoted to good article status

The proposal needs to be be accurate and truthful on how the DYK process works. — Maile (talk) 12:56, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose: It seems to me that this wants to twist the DYK rules in order to make a political point on a particluar day. I do believe they need DYK consensus to change the rules for a particular reason and for the reason it wants to be changed specially, I have to oppose. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• As Coin945 mentions, for April Fools Day, we actually accept articles that have been created or expanded at any point in the year leading up to the day itself. As stated on the AFD page: "The normal "5 day" rule for expansion and nominating is not followed." My biggest issue with this personally is the PoV aspect: if we can maintain a NPoV, then I don't see a major issue. Harrias ^talk 16:19, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I already explained this above. Take that proposal with a pinch of salt. I copy pasted the content from the DYK section of the April Fools Day Main Page project, and edited it slightly, in order to have at least *something* there. I know it is non-applicable to the current project. And as a non-DYK editor I have no experience in this field and it would be wrong of me to try to fix it. If you have an idea of how the rules should work, simply click the edit button and change them. Like seriously, go ahead. No discussion required. Noone will get mad, I promise. Consider it a place holder until it is replaced by something better by you guys. :)--Coin945 (talk) 15:04, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Assuming good faith on the part of the people who want this coordinated effort to happen on Feb 11, everything at DYK is consensus. So, it's good you ran up the page proposal. But the very nature of DYK requires consensus here of a structural nature:

1) A vote on whether or not they want to do it;

2) The structure of how DYK would work it. It would have to be very, very coordinated. And part of the normal process takes Admins to approve prep areas and move them up to Queues, like this:

a. Hook is proposed in the normal nature on the nominations page

b. Hook is reviewed for content and newness and references, commented on, ALT hooks proposed or not, passed or failed (in any normal hook, some have been out there for weeks or months) This is also subject to other editors weighing in after a "pass", and the "pass" can be rejected based on criteria met or missed, and a new review called for.

c. Hook, in this case, would go to a holding area for a specific date

d. Any volunteer promotes the hooks, one by one, to a prep area

e. Admin reviews and approves prep set to move it to a Queue

f. Queue moves to main page appearance according to its place in line

g. Main page hooks can be pulled by an Admin if errors are found and reported

Note to Coin945: Did you leave the "tagged" pings below? I saw it when I came to this page just now. But just so you know, Notifications has not been working for me since the beginning of the month, with the exception of letting me know "thanks" and what it left on my talk page. I'm guessing it's not working for a lot of people, because when I've pinged people over the last few weeks, nothing happens. I've left a message on the Village Pump, as I suspect it's something in how they're revamping something or other. — Maile (talk) 15:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of the validity of the project or how much DYK wants to contribute to it (there is already strong support for the idea so I can say with an educated guess that we're going full steam ahead), the DYK section is already filling up with ideas. So step A is underway. I'm sure the DYK veterans and come up with amazing ones in ten seconds flat, so I can't wait to see it pile up over the next few days with quality content. Then the review process, i imagine, will be relatively swift and painless. I know I for one will not be overly protective of a hook. If I nominate 20 and they all get beaten to a pulp by a reviewer, so be it. (I havent nominated any just yet, and dont plan to). The date is already set, and the hooks can obviously be removed if down the line less US-bias, or less editorialisation or whatever is required. There may be 7 steps, but most of those steps are quick and harless. Having a quick peek at what's there right now, you could use Y and N to get the show on the road - and perhaps even give some constructive criticism on how to improve mediocre hooks on good article topics.--Coin945 (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

And yes, I did ping DYK people. I hate the fact it's so unreliable. *sigh*...--Coin945 (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Tagged: User:The C of E User:Maile66 User:IseliljaUser:HiLo48 User:The ed17User:King jakob c 2--Coin945 (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

April Fools Day and this are completly different things. April Fools Day is to make amusing hooks and hold them until the day. It is intended to stop any desperate rushes a few days beforehand. Whereas this is just aiming to push some political point that came from an issue that doesn't really affect users outside the USA. You cannout use the rules of AFD as an excuse to try and twist the DYK rules to fit some sort of agenda. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not. And considering I have already explained myself - twice - I find that comment rather weird. In any case, I've blanked the guidelines section for you so you have a clean slate to work with. :D--Coin945 (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I fail to see why Wikipedia should waste its time and twist the DYK rules pertaining to a minor and ultimately insignificant event. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 15:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: we cannot promote a political event whilst staying neutral; if the event is engineered by people within Wikipedia, they should attempt to stay neutral, not emblazon over the main page. Matty.007 17:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Noone is promoting anything. The idea is to have content which is (however remotely) connected to the vague theme of the NSA, which involves anything from privacy to espionage, to free speech, to whatnot.--Coin945 (talk) 17:34, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Noone is promoting anything.

Nonsense. Even if the content is written from a neutral point of view, the idea is to compile it specifically for the purpose of supporting an organized protest occurring that day. Jehochman, who proposed the plan, noted an objective to "send a strong message". This is not a neutral endeavor, let alone one consistent with Wikipedia's mission. —David Levy 00:55, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose, for the reasons cited above. —David Levy 00:55, 16 January 2014 (UTC*)
• Oppose. Neutrality requires more than neutral articles. This proposal would give us a thoroughly non-neutral choice of articles in order to push an agenda. Let me quote a basic policy page: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. We have broad community consensus in favor of enforcing a policy page whose intro says All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view and This policy is nonnegotiable. Discussion here isn't able to overturn community consensus on neutrality. And finally, go read product placement and tell me how this is at all different from a non-commercial variant of it. Nyttend (talk) 16:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that's it. It is not a vehicle to promote ANY political agenda, at all, no matter how nice or nasty it is. If the WMF wants to jump on the bandwagon for this campaign and they feel it is line with their goal to promote free knowledge, then fine, they can issue statements and do interviews etc., but they're encyclopedic projects must remain neutral. I opposed the SOPA action, and I will oppose this for the same reason: we must not stray from our original purpose to provide a compendium of neutral free knowledge into some kind of internet activist group. It's an insult to our donors, we promised them that we would not be like all the rest of the internet wikis with clear POV's (e.g. Conservapedia), and would be genuinely neutral on political matters. Please stop. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 11:18, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Treat this like a "special occasion"

A standard practice at DYK is to consider requests for hooks to be displayed on a "special occasion", such as a holiday or an anniversary that it relates to (or the Olympics). The standard DYK protocol for "special occasions" is that:

1. The nomination must be made according to normal DYK procedures, no more than 6 weeks before the requested special occasion.
2. The nomination must be reviewed according to our usual rules.
3. Once it is approved, it can be moved into the special occasion holding area for the requested date -- but the person who made the date request should not be the one to move it.

I propose that we treat this "Day We Fight Back" as a "special occasion", according to the above rules. --Orlady (talk) 17:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

At special occasions we have only one or two, not an entire set, or multiple sets dedicated to the topic (unless it is a truly worldwide, major event with massive news coverage). Matty.007 17:32, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Times are a' changin'. What would you say to more frequent one-off days on the main page? Like a maths-themed day, or a space-themed day, or an animal-themed day? I think it would be rather fun.--Coin945 (talk) 17:35, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

There are precedents for theme based days. May 3, 2013 for example had hooks related to the 100th anniversary of the Indian Film industry in all three DYK sets with items at both TFA and SA/OTD.--Allen3 ^talk 17:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but a theme with a political message? Matty.007 17:46, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

There is no political message. But the entries will be based around a very general theme, as has been stated numerous times already. Any proposals for hooks that editorialise or are anti-NSA or anything like that will be shut down immediately. It will be things like "Did you know that freedom of speech originated in Ancient Greece in yada yada", or "This episode of X files revolves around government phone tapping", or "In this year, person was arrested for speaking about abortion in a lecture".--Coin945 (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Even if it isn't based on a political message, people will catch on that it is quite political, given the short amount of time since the NSA revelations. Matty.007 18:02, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The number of hooks included in special-occasion hooks set is generally limited by the number of nominated hooks that meet all of the criteria. I'd be very surprised if there are enough qualified nominations to fill all (i.e., 21 or more) of the February 11th slots with hooks related to this topic. --Orlady (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

So Coin, you there's no political message, but Wikipedia is having a special day to protest about the NSA. You have no idea. That simply IS a political message. Just telling people that Wikipedia is organising such a protest is political. HiLo48 (talk) 21:59, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, based on Orlady's proposal of treating this as a "special occasion" I'm starting to see it from Coin945's point of view, as he has explained above.(It will be things like "Did you know that freedom of speech originated in Ancient Greece in yada yada", or). I'm not saying I agree or disagree. But I suddenly get the overall picture on this. Whether or not this is workable with DYK, it would certainly get global attention. It's not so far removed from hooks we've had about genocide and other brutalities around the world. Internet snooping and government prying is also a brutality of sorts. I vote for keeping Edward Snowden's name out of it, because I'm sick of hearing about him. Oh...that was a POV.— Maile (talk) 22:28, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

"There is no political message"? The whole thing is intended to serve as part of an organized protest occurring that day. The plan's proposer (in the discussion that led you to create the project page) described it as a way to "send a strong message". This was part of a post on the subject of when "a message is most effective". Do you see what word was used repeatedly?

I want to assume good faith on your part, Coin, but the above claim is making it difficult. —David Levy 01:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Let me jump in to defend Coin here. One of the things you're noticing is that different proposers have different proposals. Coin seems to be proposing JUST a "Special Day" on mainpage, but with no message from the Community, e.g. April Fools.

Others have considered something closer to our SOPA initiative-- an Editorial Day; Where our community actually is making an editorial statement of some sort. In this version, we're have a banner on every page that links to a community statement. That statement might be superficially similar to a normal day's main page, but disclaimers and other visual cues will make it clear that we're using our editorial voice in a way that we almost never do.

Since we cannot anticipate what the wider-community will decide, we're preparing for both eventualities simultaneously and in overlapping ways. --HectorMoffet (talk) 04:36, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware that other ideas have been proposed. I'm not referring to any of those. I linked to a specific proposal by Jehochman, which I'll now quote in its entirety:

I'll pipe up as a marketing guy. A message is most effective when it matches the format of the media. We're an encyclopedia. On Feb 11, I suggest we fill our front page with articles, blurbs and news about mass spying and privacy. That will send a strong message, and help educate people. It's sort of like what we do on April 1, except serious instead of foolish. Jehochman ^Talk 02:22, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

As you can see, there's no mention of a banner or anything other than what Coin945 advocates. Coin945 explicitly cited Jehochman's proposal as the basis of the current endeavor ("Created Wikipedia:The Day We Fight Back in a similar vein to the April Fool's Day Main Page campaign, due to the already-overwhelming support for Jehochman's brilliant compromise."), so his/her subsequent claim that "there is no political message" is incredible. —David Levy 05:05, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, it would "send a message" that we feel the subject is important, but nothing beyond that. I wouldn't call that a political message-- we don't say if it's good or bad, we don't say if it's right or wrong. The only "message" is that we feel the subject is important enough to feature on Main.

Of course, I actually do want to send an actual message, assuming there's consensus for one. --HectorMoffet (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Whether it entails displaying a banner or merely running special main page content, the idea is to express solidarity with advocacy groups and draw attention to their cause by participating in an organized protest occurring on that specific day. Coin945 has posted messages referring to the endeavor as "part of the [The Day We Fight Back] campaign". The notion that the intent isn't to convey a political message is absurd. (At least you're entirely upfront about your desire to do this.) —David Levy 05:35, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

On the "Day We Fight Back" website, it says surveillance "undermines the Internet". If SOPA was important enough to cause a blackout, an 'awareness day' doesn't seem out of the question. The protest is meant to honor Aaron Swartz as well. * petrarchan47tc 07:52, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

As for me, I am agnostic on whether Wikipedia should take part in a protest or not. But a protest must be separated from the ordinary encyclopedic work. Use the whole front page to the protest if you want to - we can cancel DYKs for a day or days - but make clear it's a policial message from the community, separate from the encyclopedia itself. DYK, ITN and the other ordinary main page sports must never be turned into a political soapbox. I can't believe we are ever having this discussion. Iselilja (talk) 08:17, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I would regard even that as an abuse of site. The Wikipedia community exists for the purpose of writing an encyclopedia. When it was believed that legislation threatened this mission, the community reacted in a pragmatic manner. At the time, some feared that the blackout would set a dangerous precedent, with calls for protests in support of other causes with which most of Wikipedia's editors agreed. I was skeptical that such a slippery slope would arise, but here we are. —David Levy 08:32, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I just want to bold that quote from you: a protest must be separated from the ordinary encyclopedic work. Use the whole front page to the protest if you want to but make clear it's a [editorial] message from the community, separate from the encyclopedia itself.

Absolutely ESSENTIAL. If we do it, content displayed at Main must be instantly recognizable as "different than usual" and "not part of the encyclopedia". A banner at minimum, but ideally changing the CSS. Our readers should recognize it's not really a "Main Page", it just happens to be stored there at the same address. And obviously, extensive community support is necessary before actually doing this. --HectorMoffet (talk) 12:10, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

1. It was believed (rightly or wrongly) that SOPA and PIPA threatened Wikipedia's very existence. For that reason, I supported the English Wikipedia's blackout. Many others opposed it on the basis that even that circumstance didn't justify engaging in political advocacy at the encyclopedia level.

In this instance, the connection to Wikipedia is tangential at best. This probably isn't even the greatest threat that the Internet faces right now, let alone one directly impacting Wikipedia. We mustn't transform the encyclopedia into a soapbox on which to protest everything that we happen to dislike.

2. Yes, I'm aware that the protest is meant to pay tribute to Aaron Swartz. This, too, is a non-NPOV position. It isn't Wikipedia's place to take anyone's side in the legal controversy that preceded his suicide (and the fact that he was a Wikipedian doesn't change that).

3. All of this, of course, has no bearing on Coin945's claim that "there is no political message". —David Levy 08:32, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Points taken. Although, anything that threatens the Internet is a direct threat to Wikipedia. According to this article, "The general idea is to use Feb. 11 as rallying point to get people online to discuss the NSA's various surveillance programs with the same passion that they discussed SOPA in 2011-12." That simply doesn't sound out of alignment with Wikipedia's general mission, except that we normally aren't focused on a particular issue, making this indeed a "special occasion". I wonder too if the slippery slope argument is being invoked prematurely. petrarchan47tc 19:29, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

The belief that surveillance "threatens the Internet" is inherently non-neutral. So was opposition to SOPA and PIPA, but attorneys who analyzed the bills' actual language concluded that they stood to directly impede Wikipedia's operations. I've read no comparable credible statements regarding surveillance. The connection to Wikipedia is tangential at best, relying entirely upon the unproven premise that the activities in question will cause great harm to the Internet.

Also, there's a major distinction between opposing pending legislation and condemning a government agency's active policies. A very real controversy exists, with many asserting that the NSA's surveillance is essential to the prevention of terrorism. Taking sides in this debate is not within Wikipedia's purview. It's one thing to defend the encyclopedia's ability to exist and quite another to exploit our goodwill as a tool for attacking things that we simply dislike. —David Levy 21:44, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see "awareness raising" as attacking. For instance, it's possible that many people support the current global surveillance apparatus because they are unaware that it hasn't been successful in its stated purpose: stopping terrorist attacks 1 2. It's been suggested that the program "makes us less safe". SOPA required a blackout, the novel, detailed revelations of global spying deserves an awareness day, imo. petrarchan47tc 00:22, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

And there's another non-neutral post. Every time I see one of those it makes it more obvious that this is a political campaign, something we must avoid at all costs. HiLo48 (talk) 01:03, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see "awareness raising" as attacking.

Use whatever terminology you prefer. My point is that the protest's purpose is to side against (and draw negative attention to) the surveillance operations.

The remainder of your reply can be summarized as follows: "But don't you see? The surveillance is bad, and this is our opportunity to take a stand!"

The campaign's righteousness is immaterial. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. It isn't a platform for the advancement of political causes. "But this one is good!" isn't a valid argument. —David Levy 02:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

My views towards this thing have evolved and been adapted as I've thought more about what we are actually trying to accomplish here, and the steps that need to be taken to ensure the doubts that you have brought to our attention are addressed. When I first created the page, it was based on the vey basic notion of "there is a thing called TDWFB, this user has a proposal based off of it, lets crate a draft proposal page of te same name to avoid confusion, and hey presto". I'm quite baffled that random thins said at random times while we were all still trying to figure out what the hell we wee contributing to, are now being taken by gospel. A copy-pasted section from the AFD page amused an uproar with you DYK guys... When it was simply a matter of quickly adding a placeholder to the page with little thought or energy put into it. You knew this draft of a proposal was in-progress.. And yet it caused *such* an uproar...... Anyway, I have changed my view now from what it was before. I consider it to be inspired by the project, nothing more. We are using a protest as an excuse to have themed content on the main page. Our political message, if we have one, is that NSA-related issues are noteworthy. We will then use our editorial judgement to ensure the actual hooks don't focus too much on the negative or positive aspects of any one thing.--Coin945 (talk) 09:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm British, but to me the NSA is a US government department so in my view anything that focusses the project on NSA related issues is turning it into a political POV. Now if you can balance it so that for every negative hook about the NSA, there must be a positive one to go with it, then I might be more amenable to it. Otherwise its a NPOV violation. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:02, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

That would be the general idea, yes. But I actually want to go a step further than that and make the majority/entirity of the page only vaguely related to the topic of the NSa - so anything to do with privacy, censorship, espionage, whatnot. So it wouldnt be a case of pro-NSA and anti-NSA content. It would just be content that happens to have some sort of link to something that the NSA is associated with. "The NSA was accused of phonetapping" - WRONG. "The first reported case of phonetapping occured in ___ at ___ where [this happened]" - RIGHT.--Coin945 (talk) 10:51, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

And the scheduled protest inspired you, but this plan has nothing to do with supporting it. You (along with others, including the person who came up with the idea) originally said that the purpose was to participate in the protest, but you've changed your mind, so that's no longer the case. Now it's purely an opportunity to present a specially themed main page, and this just happens to be the subject selected. That's "what we are actually trying to accomplish here".

We could run, say, a Winter Olympics-themed main page on February 23, but no. We're going with the NSA, and not because we support the protest occurring against the NSA that day. Even though that's what we said in the first place. Right. —David Levy 11:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I have changed my view now from what it was before. I consider it to be inspired by the project, nothing more. We are using a protest as an excuse to have themed content on the main page. Our political message, if we have one, is that NSA-related issues are noteworthy.

Saying that doesn't make it so. If Wikipedia presents main page content with the suggested theme on February 11 — the exact day on which the protest "inspiring" it occurs — this will be widely interpreted as an expression of support. And rightly so. Why else would we be doing it? The idea that we're using this particular event as inspiration and "nothing more" — with our opinion of the underlying activism playing no role — defies all logic.

And that would be true even if editors (including you) hadn't unambiguously stated that the intent was to participate in the campaign. But you did, and it's hardly petty to quote these posts. They aren't "random things said at random times". They're explicit explanations of the motive behind this plan, written yesterday and the day before (when you were forthright regarding your desire to use Wikipedia's main page for political advocacy). —David Levy 11:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

The distinction is that instead of being an NSA attack page, it is instead bringing the general issues revolving around the protest to peoples attention. People may or may ot know about this protest. The point is *why* such a portest would conceivably be made in the first place. What is the context that would make one group hold a protest against another in such a way. We are bringing issues such as phone tapping, freedom of speech etc to people's attention so they can understand the context without actually making a statement. I made an analogy on the ITN talk page about doing a similar thing on the day of a Pro-Nazi rally. Having the main page filled with Holocaust, germany, world war II, jews, hitler etc. would give context to why they hold the views that they do, and why some may disagree with them. But like always we will only be presenting the pieces of information, and not making a judgement about them. Saying "6 million people died in the holocaust" or "Hitler believed that the Aryans were the master race" is not "nazis are evil scumbags" or "hitler was an amazing guy". It's explaining WHY the modern day event is occuring and the context behind it. But it is not editorialising it AT ALL.--Coin945 (talk) 11:46, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Presenting very specific pieces of info, which often will get skewed towards one way, in filling all of the main page is still leading towards an NPOV violation. I feel I must point out what happened in the Gibraltarpedia controversy when loads of Gibraltar related hooks appeared in DYK at the same time. The media storm that happened then will no doubt happen again once they catch on to what this proposal is attempting to do if it gets implimented. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 11:56, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

There is a major difference though, of course. Rather than having multiple hooks bringing Gibraltar to peoples attention (for the record I never really understood what all the fuss was about...), we may have one hook that explains "snowden was convicted of ____", and another that says "since the post 9/11 security measures on planes, [this many] terrorist attacks have been foiled". One that says "_____ said that freedom of speech is a basic human right", while another may say that "swear words are considered a form of obsenity in [this culture]". One may say "location services on facebook make it easier to charts your and your friends travels" while another may say "location services ahve been shown to be used by robbers to know when people are out of the house". These are the sorts of things the page will have (obviously with much better hooks). Both views. Every view. On these complicated and controversial issues.--Coin945 (talk) 12:13, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

...all compiled for the express purpose of drawing readers' attention to a political protest that we seek to support. —David Levy 12:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm... I see your point. In any case, this isn't a cause i feel strongly enough to fight for (i know ive already overstepped that boundary by getting way to caught up in the discussion of how this could conceivably work). I feel like I have gotten in way to deep into a heated discussion and can't really be bothered continuing. Reading David's comment made me realise that even my view of the project was pointed in its own subtle way, and the more I think about it the more I question if it is actually a good idea at all. And if i am not 100% behind an idea I cant continue to endorse it. And so I think I will now withdraw from the conversation and let the other more passionate people battle it out. I am merely a helpful bystander after all. I never meant to become a torchbearer. But alas I got a tad too swept up in trying to solve this brain teaser of keeping everyone happy. I would still like to see themed days on the main page, and perhaps this has opened up the discussion for that. but for now, my role int he discussion ends. the :side" i was arguing for is still alive and well. Sit tight and someone from Wikipedia; The Day We Fight Back will be sure to come a'knockin'. Peace Out.--Coin945 (talk) 16:49, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

And why would we have decided to bring this protest (as opposed to any of countless other scheduled events) to readers' attention? To promote it, of course. We came right out and said so. That's the reason behind the idea.

You keep stressing that the individual pieces of content will be neutral/balanced. That isn't sufficient when we're compiling them to generate publicity for political advocacy that we support. —David Levy 12:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - per WP:SOAPBOX, we're not in this for political advocacy. Focus on building the encyclopaedia and spare me the nausea of tolerating partisan protest politics and agitprop. Thank you.--ColonelHenry (talk) 01:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

@ColonelHenry: You appear to have gotten the third end to a stick that only has two ends. Please read this conversation to get a better understanding of the actual proposal being made, rather than dismissing it as activist claptrap.--Coin945 (talk) 12:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Less than a day ago, you posted on multiple pages to advertise the proposal as a means of participating in the protest. Now you're complaining about editors' hasty assumption that the intent is to participate in the protest. —David Levy 12:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

That is correct. Your point being..? Participating in a protest (margianally, mind you) is very different to shouting an agenda to the world.--Coin945 (talk) 12:54, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

My point is that you're criticising editors for basing their views on your words (and those of the idea's other proponents). The proposal was devised for the express purpose of supporting a political cause, which you openly acknowledged until substantial opposition emerged (at which point you suddenly began claiming that no such motive exists and condemning interpretations to the contrary). —David Levy 13:14, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

If you want to do protest, go write for Pravda and spare me this crap. Nothing says "this isn't political, fellas" like saying "hey guys, let's have a protest against the political abuses of the regime/illuminati/NSA/CIA/KGB/Stasi" while proposing to make Guy Fawkes (cue Anonymous) today's featured article... If you want to do politics, get in the street and throw rocks at cops. Turning Wikipedia political no longer makes it a neutral provider of information--it undermines the brand, would undoubtedly anger some readers, and apparently (given the opposition) angers some contributors. Such feckless and ultimately useless agitation is inherently dangerous. Wikipedia is not a political actor and shouldn't be seen as a political actor. Sure, I hate the NSA bullshit too, but I'd rather throw rocks at cops when the time comes. Save your intifada for the streets. Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a battleground, nor is it a stick to beat back the problems of the world. And harassing people who disagree with you when you ask if they support or oppose is poor form, dude. Get a life--actually, focus on the encyclopaedia...how novel.--ColonelHenry (talk) 14:42, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per ColonelHenry and general problem with hypocrisy of proposer (not Jehochman, the original one) first wanting to WP:OUT Snowden and now portraying himself as the great defender of the privacy rights and supporter of the "hero" Snowden. He shouldn't use Wikipedia to promote his own position when it suits him. Fram (talk) 07:31, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: This proposal is quite different to that of the "original proposer". You oppose that proposal? Guess what? I do too. Unfortunately for you your Oppose is meaningless in this discussion, which is for something quite different.--Coin945 (talk) 12:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

No, I oppose this specific proposal, and the general reason / guiding force behind the proposal. Fram (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support We often have special days, including elections, sports events, national days, world something-or-other-day. Not editorialising. And since we once blacked out the whole encyclopaedia, we explicitly and officially tolerate and allow protest related events. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

  As discussed above, that particular protest (which I supported) pertained to legislation believed to threaten Wikipedia's very existence. Many editors opposed it anyway, on the basis that even that circumstance didn't justify engaging in political advocacy at the encyclopedia level. Some feared that the blackout would set a dangerous precedent, with calls for protests in support of other causes with which most of Wikipedia's editors agreed. Evidently, we've now reached that slippery slope. —David Levy 12:48, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support per Hawkeye7. FWIW, Cybersecurity scholar Peter Singer claims the NSA revelations have "hollowed out the American ability to operate effectively in ensuring the future of the internet itself, in the way we would hope it would be." petrarchan47tc 19:42, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget though, this is not a site catering for americans alone. Why should the rest of the English speaking users on Wikipedia be dragged into this clearly politicied event that is just based around an american government department? It is a definate WP:NPOV violation. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:49, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

True, it's unfortunate I couldn't find a quotation regarding the globe, but here we are. The spying revelations have been coming from international media such as The Guardian and Der Speigel, and have exposed the fact that the American NSA works in tandem with the UK's GCHQ and its other Five Eyes partners, in cooperation with most other Western nations to surveil everyone who uses the Internet and computers/devices. The latest revelation from the UK is that all of your texts are being stored: "the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA database to search the metadata of "untargeted and unwarranted" communications belonging to people in the UK" petrarchan47tc 20:19, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• A non-US-specific quotation from the Executive director of campaign group Demand Progress, David Segal: "Today the greatest threat to a free internet, and broader free society, is the National Security Agency's mass spying regime." petrarchan47tc 20:54, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Those two posts are obviously presenting a non-neutral POV on the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 23:08, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Please don't tell me that surveillance is not of international interest. What is called NSA surveillance in the United States is actually being carried out by a consortium of agencies from five English-speaking countries (Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States). In Australia Snowden's documents revealed that our Defence Signals Directorate has been spying on Malaysia and Indonesia, listening in on the phone conversations of the Indonesian president and first lady. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:34, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

And nobody with any real awareness of how the world works, and has worked for thousands of years, was surprised. HiLo48 (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the controversy is international. That isn't a valid excuse for Wikipedia to engage in political advocacy. —David Levy 02:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - All governments in all countries spy on anybody and everybody. Maybe we could broaden this special event to include articles about "intelligence" operations in other countries and/or other "military intelligence" operations. Anybody who thinks this is strictly of interest to America might need to ask Angela Merkel — Maile (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, governments DO spy on people, and have for thousands of years. So what? HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

No one has asserted that Wikipedia shouldn't provide coverage of known intelligence operations around the world. The problem is that this "special event" is designed to take a stand in opposition to some of them. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an activist group. —David Levy 02:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support - I wrote this proposal primarily to point out that DYK has established protocols for dealing with content that somebody wants to feature on a particular day (often including commemorations of interest to only a small fraction of our users), and to say that this idea could be accommodated under those established protocols (one of which is that Wikipedia policy, including WP:NPOV must not be violated). I was envisioning that we could expect to run several DYK hooks on the broad topic of government surveillance, by no means limited to the U.S. government or to modern times, and that they likely would be commingled with other hooks on the Winter Olympics and other topics. After reading the continuing discussion, I do believe that this is the right direction for DYK to take.

It appears to me that none of the suggested hooks that have been proposed at Wikipedia:The Day We Fight Back#Did You Know would qualify for DYK (for example, because the articles are too short, or aren't qualified as newly created, newly expanded, or new GAs). I don't think it is productive to continue arguing about the politics of "The Day We Fight Back" (or Surveillance Awareness Day) when we could be telling the supporters of this event: "Here are our standard rules for DYK and special occasion features in DYK. If you want DYK to commemorate February 11th, you need to do it within the constraints of these rules." Unless somebody comes up with content that meets DYK criteria, there's no purpose in arguing about whether it should be featured on 11 Feb. --Orlady (talk) 02:34, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

You've noted that "DYK has established protocols for dealing with content that somebody wants to feature on a particular day (often including commemorations of interest to only a small fraction of our users)". But when has this ever been done as part of a political protest intended to advance a cause? The proposed "special event" goes far beyond the highly controversial Gibraltarpedia items, whose purpose was merely to promote tourism. Heck, it even goes beyond 2012's blackout in the respect that it entails using articles to convey the message (as opposed to suppressing them for a day, which kept the actual encyclopedia separate from the protest). —David Levy 03:01, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Gibraltarpedia is irrelevant here. That was not an implementation of DYK's "special occasion" protocol; rather it was something that happened to Wikipedia without prior discussion, and later had to be managed. It's not relevant here.

Real examples of DYK "special occasions" include the hooks currently in the special occasion holding area, commemorating the 1902 coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, commemorating a 1968 Beatles concert, and featuring the Winter Olympics. In the recent past, other DYK commemorations have included Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, Halloween, the International Day of Peace, the date when Lübeck martyrs were guillotined for opposing the Nazi regime, basketball games between U.S. universities, the Alfred Russel Wallace centenary, the Swami Vivekananda 150th anniversary, the first no-hitter at Yankee Stadium, and the birthdays of some long-dead classical composers and of a historical Princess of Wales. These hooks are never labeled or advertised as being related to a particular occasion. Furthermore, it should be clear from the diversity of this list that there is no particular bias toward royalty, basketball, peace, the Eurovision song contests, Christianity, Hinduism, or any other topic. DYK simply runs special-occasion hooks on dates that DYK editors are persuaded to regard as special occasions. --Orlady (talk) 05:45, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Gibraltarpedia is irrelevant here. That was not an implementation of DYK's "special occasion" protocol;

And that, in your view, was the problem?

The controversy stemmed from allegations that Roger Bamkin (a Wikipedia editor and Wikimedia UK trustee) accepted consultancy fees from Gibraltar's government in exchange for using Wikipedia (including the DYK section) to promote the territory — a conflict of interest.

In the current situation, monetary compensation doesn't appear to be a component (so if you want to point out a material difference, that would be it). Instead, we have editors working to compile special content (at DYK and other main page sections) for the express purpose of informing the world that Wikipedia supports an organized protest occurring that day. This, in my view, is a greater conflict of interest. In the case of Gibraltarpedia, the worst-case scenario is that someone got paid to ensure that content otherwise meeting Wikipedia's normal standards appeared (with questionable benefit to Gibraltar's tourism drive). In this case, we have a concerted effort to use Wikipedia's main page to advance a political agenda. Labeling this a "special occasion" doesn't somehow make it okay. The underlying motive and real-world impact matter very much.

rather it was something that happened to Wikipedia without prior discussion, and later had to be managed.

Prior discussion doesn't negate bias. We can't vote away our responsibility to maintain a neutral point of view.

Real examples of DYK "special occasions" include [list snipped]

Yes, I agree that those are real examples of legitimate "special occasions" at DYK. That's because none are/were part of a political protest intended to advance a cause. I ask again: when has this ever occurred?

DYK simply runs special-occasion hooks on dates that DYK editors are persuaded to regard as special occasions.

Yes, and these are documented holidays, anniversaries, etc. Conversely, February 11's only special significance is that it's the date of an organized protest — one in which some editors wish to participate by running related main page content as a show of solidarity, thereby promoting the campaign. —David Levy 08:43, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

To pick up on Orlady's point, there seems to be widespread support that the closer we come to meeting status quo criteria, the better. In the interest of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, we're accepting nominees that would not pass our status quo criteria. But when we're done nominating, I suspect the nominees left standing will be those closest to our usual status quo standards.

So please don't pre-judge a proposal before it even exists-- instead, help us create good solid relevant NPOV nominations that we can all be proud of. --HectorMoffet (talk) 05:31, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

To Orlady, What you are proposing is not some special occasion like a major sporting event or annual anniversary, it is a political protest that should not involve Wikipedia because it suggests that the project favours one view over another. Gibraltarpedia is a very good reason why we shouldn't do this. People will complain and also it will lead to another media storm once people not involved understand what this is trying to do. Also I notice that most of the !supports come from people involved in this proposal and not DYK regulars who have to live with the consequences. Something that we've already had happen with GA (democratically) invading the DYK spaces. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 08:40, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Whether the supports or opposes come from DYK regulars or not is irrelevant, DYK regulars doing something against the wishes of the wider community (or nor doing something despite the wishes of the wider community) would be a bad idea. Fram (talk) 08:54, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyhow, such a bold proposal would need near landslide consensus, which it doesn't have. Matty.007 19:08, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose a special day of support or advertising for a specific political protest through Wikipedia content placement. The claim that this is like any special day is absurd -- it is obviously an attempt at highly organized political editorial actions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:39, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support. I never was fond of some of the extreme parts of the proposal, but I'm not asking for any "special rights" here. I just want each DYK proposer to have the same ability as any other DYK proposer to request that his or her hook be saved up for a few weeks after they're submitted so as to appear on a day that seems relevant. That's not a collective right or decision, but an individual one. I am unaware of any policy saying what "special occasions" are too political to allow and which aren't -- that decision itself would be political bias on Wikipedia worse than any proposed by the surveillance project people. Plus I should emphasize that the point of creating any such articles is not "political advocacy", but political education, i.e. to make certain issues that people on that day may want to look up more accessible to whoever wishes to see them. There's no need to bias the articles or try to leave out one side of the story - the right and wrong of the matter is apparent in and of itself! Wnt (talk) 00:13, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Want to change the contents and purpose of the main page? Start a sitewide, well-advertised RfC!

The problem is that we have no idea what the wider community wants, this is so far a proposal made by a small incrowd, originating on one user talk page (which is used as a restricted community discussion board when it suits the user involved). Before this gets discussed here, this should get a community discussion (preferably an RfC with a general site notice). Those proposing and supporting this proposal probably shuold start on it, as there is less than a month left until the proposed date for this. Fram (talk) 08:54, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

This should have been listed on Centralized Discussion, and that was mentioned on JWales' talk page. What actually happened is This List of Notifications. And except for a smattering of opinions at ITN, not much dialogue has happened. The only continued action has been here at DYK. Regardless of the heated discussion on this page, and how it started on the JWales talk page, this isn't going anywhere anyhow. — Maile (talk) 12:52, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

As an added thought, if there is not a united consent by the other interested areas of the main page, I don't think DYK should go it alone, not even as a special occasion. And it doesn't look like that's happening. I understand the proposal above from @Orlady: as merely suggesting it be handled through the usual DYK process/format if it were agreed upon. But if there is no united front by the other main page areas, DYK would indeed look like they were promoting a political POV if they alone devoted one entire day to these hooks. — Maile (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Well the majority of DYK contributors seem to be against it anyway. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:07, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

The entire proposal seems to be the pipe-dream of a handful of five editors. Sorry, I care little for using Wikipedia as a bludgeon for political partisanship. I just wish the effort they put into this stupid idea (and continue to waste on it) was better spent getting one of the articles on their list to FA status. Screaming about politics is just wasting air. Using Wikipedia as a mouthpiece for a political position is wasted time typing. I still oppose this, will continue to oppose this, and will now get back to polishing the draft of a poetry article I've been working on--something useful, and not likely to alienate the readers and editors who don't being subjected to ideology and agitprop.--ColonelHenry (talk) 20:00, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Cleared for a week, yet not promoted

Template:Did you know nominations/Grace Gates has had a green tick for a week but hasn't been promoted. I wouldn't normally post something like this but when an article like Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken is able to be created, cleared, promoted and featured on the main page within the same period of time, I would like to ask if the admins could promote it soon, preferably with the image. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not just admins who make preps. Matty.007 17:34, 15 January 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) 22:00, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

All queues and prep areas are empty

Editors are needed to promote articles into the prep areas. That entire page is empty. — Maile (talk) 00:43, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

•  Doing.... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

•  Done. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:55, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

All queues and prep areas once again empty

3-1/2 hours to go until the next update. — Maile (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... I'll make a start now ... lunch hour is about to commence. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 12:44, 15 January 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 #1 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) 14:04, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

2013 YP139

2013 YP139 should be written 2013 YP139 (with the subscript; see Provisional designation in astronomy#Minor planets). To do that, simply copy the code I've written here. --JorisvS (talk) 08:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I've copied your report to WP:ERRORS, as the hook is currently on the Main Page. Any discussion should be done there. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 09:22, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Chain Reaction

Chain Reaction (sculpture) was nominated by @Tentinator: for DYK on Dec 20, 2013, and a review has been in process since Dec 22. The nominator has made no comment on the template other than to nominate it. The article's editor @Viriditas: has requested this be removed from DYK consideration, due to the article's instability resulting from an ongoing dispute over the sculpture at the local level in Santa Monica, CA. The editor has also expressed concern that putting this on the main page of Wikipedia, at this time could appear as a POV by Wikipedia. As the original reviewer of this nomination, I concur.— Maile (talk) 13:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Done. Given that this was one of 93 nominations in a two-week period by this nominator, I doubt it will be missed. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow. 93. Don't recall this situation before. It does tend to reinforce the above dialogue about a bot placing a notice on the creator's talk page if nominated by another editor. Only the creator would know if it was a work in progress. — Maile (talk) 16:01, 16 January 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 #4 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) 14:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Only 15 minutes left! Is there an admin around who can do the update? BlueMoonset (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK update

I've moved P3 to Q5 and loaded an image to en: and protected it - ready for the next load. Can someone oversee that I havnt missed anything and tell me so I know for next time. Cheers R Victuallers (talk) 16:52, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

2014 Elk River chemical spill promote???

I would like to promote 2014 Elk River chemical spill to Prep 4. The chemical spill has been ongoing in the US the last few days. The article has been reviewed and approved. Since the situation at Elk River is an ongoing and changing event, can we promote the hook? — Maile (talk) 18:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

What's preventing you from putting the hook into a prep area? You didn't create the article, nominate it, or review it, so you are eligible to put it in a prep area. --Orlady (talk) 20:10, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I am planning to put it in there myself. The question is whether or not we can promote an article where the events are still ongoing. If there's no problem with that, I'll promote it. Please advise. — Maile (talk) 20:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Current items can go up in DYK if they haven't been featured at ITN and aren't likely to go up at ITN. This one was rejected for ITN (see Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#2014_Elk_River_chemical_spill), so it's fair game for DYK. --Orlady (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Queue 5 credit fix

A credit in Queue 5 needs adjusting. It should be:

* {{DYKmake|St Robert's Church, Pannal|Storye book|subpage=St Roberts Church, Pannal}}

MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:00, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Edited. --Orlady (talk) 22:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

A moe anthropomorphism character?

Currently in Prep Area 2, we have "that Hikaru Aizawa is a moe anthropomorphism character created by Microsoft Taiwan for endorsing Microsoft Silverlight?" I would think that "a moe antropomorphic character" would be better than "a moe anthropomorphism character", but not being a native speaker of English, some input from others would be useful. Oh, and while we're discussing this one: "for endorsing"? I'ld say "to endorse" (or "to promote"), but again, others can judge this better than I can....

Looking further, should Hikaru Aizawa even be promoted? Half the article is not about her but genral info about Silverlight; without this rather artificial addition, the page wouldn't meet the 1500 characters requirement. The only source that is really about the character, [1], is a tech blog. Is this sufficient? Fram (talk) 13:40, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Fram, I've pulled the hook from Prep 2 and sent the article back for more work: I agreed about the preponderance of Silverlight material unrelated to Hikaru Aizawa, and the seeming lack of sources about the character. As important from a DYK perspective, the "moe anthropomorphism" half of the sentence in the article is unsupported, and since it's the basis of the hook it must have its own inline source citation. (I also thought that the article could use copyediting.) BlueMoonset (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Hook for Jan 20, MLK Day

I reviewed and moved a hook to the Special occasion holding area for Jan 20, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Whch is this coming Monday. The hook had been sitting out there unreviewed since Dec 29, so thought I'd mention here. — Maile (talk) 18:21, 17 January 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 #2 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) 22:05, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

 Done --Orlady (talk) 22:12, 17 January 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 #3 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) 06:05, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

•  Done Harrias ^talk 07:22, 18 January 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 #4 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) 14:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to help craft a proposal

Surveillance awareness day is a proposal for the English Wikipedia to take special steps to promote awareness of global surveillance on February 11, 2014. That date is chosen to coincide with similar actions being taken by organizations such as Mozilla, Reddit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Feedback from members of this Wikiproject would be greatly appreciated. Please come join us as we brainstorm, polish, and present this proposal to the Wikipedia Community. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:12, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Is this different from the above proposal? Matty.007 19:14, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, as a note, I think that your DYKs would actually have to go through the DYK system, not a proposal page. Matty.007 19:16, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

It's the slightly-more-mature child of the earlier proposal-- I just want to make double triple sure not excluding anyone.

I think its entirely possible you are correct that the community would only accept items that have been through the formal DYK process. I hope to be able to present the community with such an option of items that have been through that process. Not there yet, obviously, but babysteps, one foot in front of the other, and hopefully we get there. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:35, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Presumably this would not occur if there was not an overwhelming consensus? Matty.007 19:48, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how we define "overwhelming", but I wouldn't want this to happen unless there was a clear consensus of a widespread site-wide sampling of the community. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:22, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Still not interested. There's real contributing to be done. Let Reddit protest. Wikipedia remains neutral and is not a vehicle to advocate political agitation. We're here to improve an encyclopaedia.--ColonelHenry (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

The hook set on Queue 5 seems a bit short on my screen.

If the whole set of hooks are all short hooks, perhaps there should be more hooks. Or maybe we should swap in a more wordy hook or two. I worry about left-right balance on MainPage when a hook set is much longer or shorter than the sets before and after. Let's not give admins at ITN and SelAnniv extra work to maintain the layout on MainPage. --PFHLai (talk) 19:38, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

thx - I'll see what can be done Victuallers (talk) 21:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I've swapped one large one in from Q6, but ITN does look unusually long. I cant see how to balance it without moving quite a way from our routine Victuallers (talk) 21:58, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Victuallers. As long as DYK consistently takes up roughly the same space on MainPage from hook set to hook set, it should be okay. --PFHLai (talk) 22:47, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Lower to 18 hooks per day?

Right now things are calming down a bit. Currently 240+ nominations, including 40+ verified. Perhaps lower down to six hooks per set? --George Ho (talk) 02:54, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's wait until we get below 200, since anything above that is historically quite high. 21 hooks a day seems to be doing just what it ought. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:59, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK nomination for Jammu-Sialkot Line

Apologies for this, but the above nomination may need a further review - I queried the article length but did not do a full review - it has subsequently been OK'd by someone and moved to P4 but I am worried that the further reviewer may have assumed I had done a full review - could someone check it over please, I don't have the time at present for a full review. Bcp67 (talk) 12:00, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Pulled from the prep area. Thank you for catching. — Maile (talk) 12:49, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• I have also just pulled from the prep area Template:Did you know nominations/Tajikistan Airlines Flight 3183, as one of several less than complete reviews by the same reviewer. — Maile (talk) 13:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Probably could have reviewed it yourself in the time it took you to write all this. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I see. This was your nomination. Wondering why you made that comment. Well, nobody is questioning your most excellent abilities and input. And I see someone else stepped in and reviewed it, so your issue is resolved. — Maile (talk) 21:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

And by the way, The Rambling Man, in response to your question on that template itself, it's not just you. Has nothing to do with you personally. It's about a whole batch of these so-called "reviews" by the same editor over the last few days, one who has been participating in DYK for a year or more. And, no, I couldn't have done a review on yours in the same time as I was catching the rest of this reviewer's series, including the related templates where they have already been used as QPQs, so we don't have to catch them after the fact one-by-one. Rather than have DYK go through another round of something being pulled from the main page, I just put that notice on all the half-dozen or so. And it took me about 90 minutes to catch it all. So, I'm a little ticked off about so-called "reviewers" who try to slide by for a QPQ, and then leave the mopping up to everybody else. If it had not been me, it would have been somebody else catching this stuff. @Matty.007: and @BlueMoonset: have also been leaving notes on templates where the reviews are little more than a "good to go" sentence. — Maile (talk) 22:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Admin input needed

Same reviewer as mentioned above. Queue 1 contains the hook from Max Hermann Maxy, a nom submitted by this same reviewer. Valley, West Virginia was used for a QPQ and now appears to be an incomplete review itself. Does this matter? — Maile (talk) 14:00, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Maxy is now on P4, allowing an extra 8 hours to get the noms re-reviewed as you see fit. --PFHLai (talk) 14:11, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I've pulled it and asked for a new QPQ. If anyone else thinks it should have been otherwise, they are welcome to say so. — Maile (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Rejecting nominations

I noticed several nominations were marked as rejected and closed this morning without receiving a {{DYKno}} icon - does this upset the DYKHousekeepingBot (which is currently enjoying an unauthorised vacation)? Should the close be undone or can it just be left? The nominations are:

• Whaling in the Philippines
• The Fourth Sign
• Acme (steamboat)
• SS Clan Macarthur
• Predictive policing
• Tasmanian numbfish
• Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870
• François Blouet de Camilly
• Barbara Watson (politician)
• Jonathan D. C. Turner

I only noticed as one of the nominations was on my watch list. SagaciousPhil - Chat 12:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I always thought that the orange X was the thing that led to closure, not the blue /. Blue / In my view is to hold it from being closed to allow changes to be made. Obviously if the nominator doesn't try to fix problems or ignores it, then I would close but otherwise, leave the nomination live. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:23, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you are technically correct. Or nominators say "I would like to withdraw this nomination" with the X. If you read above on Chain Reaction, this nominator was a really enthusiastic and (I believe) new participant in this process in December, nominating almost 100 articles in a short period of time. Perhaps the nominator is now seeing some of them as not worth the continued effort and resolving it in the way they thought it works. — Maile (talk) 17:42, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The "no" icon is not a prerequisite for rejecting an article, nor a requirement that it be rejected. However, nominators should not be closing their own nominations. They can post that they want to withdraw the nomination, but shouldn't be rejecting or adding icons to it (aside from the "review again" icon); that's up to independent reviewers to do. (Sometimes a reviewer will decide the article can be saved, and do just that, so it eventually does appear on the main page.) I was surprised that some of the rejected nominations were simply waiting for new reviews, and would appreciate some commentary from Tentinator on his unprecedented unilateral rejection of 9 of his 93 mid-December-nominated articles this morning. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for discussion of DYK template

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 January 18#Template:DYK topicon is a nomination to delete {{DYK topicon}} which is a template that was created to allow for a topicon to be added to DYK featured pages just like GA pages get {{Good article}} and FA pages get {{Featured article}} DYK pages should be noted with a topicon as well... That is just my thoughts on it, please comment in the discussion. Technical 13 (talk) 02:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:DYK topicon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:DYK topicon

So, do we want a topicon, such as on FAs and GAs to be on articles which have been on DYK? This is different from the DYK user topicon, which is used on userpages; as it is potentially to be used in article space. Can we have a vote? Matty.007 12:56, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• I've got a version in Template:DYK topicon/sandbox that will allow for the template to be hidden 2 weeks after it is displayed automatically and added to a maint category to be removed by a bot. If the date parameter is used, it bases two weeks on that, otherwise it bases it on the timestamp of when the page was last edited (which means it would have to be untouched for two weeks). The two week timer can easily be adjusted at any point. There is also an option to exempt a page from having the template expire for cases like the April fools page mentioned on the main DYK that reoccurs every year. I would think things like that (since it is more of a status than an appearance) should always have the icon. Ping me, and I will modify the template any way that you would like it to work. Technical 13 (talk) 13:40, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Good work there, I can support that, too; but I really don't understand why people want to have the topicon revoked sometime later... I want it to stay there for as long as it is a DYK article (i.e. indef). Is the speaker topicon similarly removed when an article loses its "spoken status"? —ШαмıQ✍ @ 14:36, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Those of you drawing comparisons with FA and GA: wrong choice for comparison. The review processes for both of those are (hopefully) something that takes several hours, and in the case of FAs means at least 3 (usually more) reviewers, plus the delegates. The amount of work which goes into the average DYK review is far less. This would be best compared to ITN. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:56, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Why is this a permanent topicon? GA and FA topicons are not permanent, they are removed when they fall in quality. Further, there's no start, B, C topicon. And the A top icon keeps getting deleted. How is DYK always better than A-class? -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 14:07, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Per Technical 13's proposal, it would be on the page for 2 weeks. Matty.007 14:18, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• The permanent nature of the topicon is reflected by the permanent nature of the DYK status itself. The DYK status is permanent, and so should be the topicon. The FA/GA status isn't permanent, and so are their topicons. Arguing its permanency is like saying FA/GA status isn't permanent, though the process is highly rigorous; so why is the DYK status permanent, when the process is not so rigorous? —ШαмıQ✍ @ 14:24, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Ridiculous. There is no point in awarding badges to every single article which passes through DYK. What would a top icon offer that the current documentation does not, besides sticking out on the article proper. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Comment that I hope will answer a lot of the opposing questions: Readers don't look at talk pages normally, only editors or people who want to changes something (have an edit made) do. This creates a link for our readers back to this achievement and notes that this page was on the Main page recently. What does a little that sits there and offers our readers (this is what Wikipedia is all about, no?) an option to see that a lot of work went into make this article a high quality one. I would venture to say that any page that has been featured on the Main page recently should have some kind of acknowledgment of that on the article. Technical 13 (talk) 17:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  Readers don't look at talk pages normally, only editors or people who want to changes something (have an edit made) do.
  That's why a talk page is an appropriate location for project information of little or no relevance to readers.
  This creates a link for our readers back to this achievement and notes that this page was on the Main page recently.
  How is knowledge of "this achievement" useful to a reader seeking information on the article's subject?
  What does a little that sits there and offers our readers (this is what Wikipedia is all about, no?) an option to see that a lot of work went into make this article a high quality one.
  That sentence doesn't seem to parse, but I'll object to your "high quality" claim (for the reasons discussed below). —David Levy 18:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  That's why a talk page is an appropriate location for project information of little or no relevance to readers.

  That information is of far more interest to readers than whether or not the page is protected from editing or not, yet the locks still appear.

  How is knowledge of "this achievement" useful to a reader seeking information on the article's subject?

  It indicates that this article has reached a higher level of quality, that is useful to the reader.

  That sentence doesn't seem to parse, but I'll object to your "high quality" claim (for the reasons discussed below).

  Objection to claim of higher quality noted and rejected. These are in fact higher quality articles, or they wouldn't be on the main page. Technical 13 (talk) 18:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  That information is of far more interest to readers than whether or not the page is protected from editing or not, yet the locks still appear.
  Please explain why a reader seeking information about an article's subject would care that a related blurb recently appeared on the main page.
  It indicates that this article has reached a higher level of quality, that is useful to the reader.
  A higher level of quality in comparison with what? Newly created/expanded articles tagged due to serious concerns? (To be clear, I'm excluding those recently promoted to GA status, which already contain a special icon.)
  Objection to claim of higher quality noted and rejected. These are in fact higher quality articles, or they wouldn't be on the main page.
  You seem to have an incomplete understanding of the main page. —David Levy 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Support

Support: Per my stance here. —ШαмıQ✍ @ 13:13, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

1. Support Yes, I think that it is right that an article can show that it has been written well enough to feature on the main page same as GA and FA do. Given that some editors use the template to show their creations on their userpage the same way GA and FA are, it seems right that DYK should be done as the same. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support as this is why I modified this template from a redirect to an actual template. See above discussion section. Technical 13 (talk) 13:40, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Erm, what? Articles already look cluttered enough as is.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   So GA and FA should have them removed then? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 14:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Please see False dilemma.
   GA/FA icons are useful to readers. This icon isn't. —David Levy 14:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   GA/FA icons are no more or less useful than a DYK icon. For our readers, this icon is more useful than any of the protection locks though... Technical 13 (talk) 17:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   GA/FA icons are no more or less useful than a DYK icon.
   What useful information (comparable to the determination that an article is of exceptionally high quality) does a DYK icon convey to readers?
   For our readers, this icon is more useful than any of the protection locks though...
   Most readers are editors or potential editors, so some of them benefit from the information that the lock icons communicate. —David Levy 18:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   DYK declares that an article is of exceptionally high quality, so your point is noted... DYK icons should be there for the same reasons as GA/FA icons. Technical 13 (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   You appear to misunderstand DYK's format. —David Levy 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

2. Oppose as it currently sits, this is a permanent topicon. That makes no sense, FA and GA topicons are removed when they don't meet FA/GA quality. There's no provision to remove this, because once an article is a DYK, it will always have been a DYK. Further, DYKs do not have to be FA/GA/A-class articles, and the A-class top icon keeps getting deleted. If you required all DYKs to be an A/GA/FA class article that's one thing, but this makes all DYKs seem to be better than A-class articles in quality. The provision for articles elevated to "GA"/"FA" already have GA/FA icons, so the DYK is just duplicating the FA/GA icon in these cases. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 14:13, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Per T13's above draft, the topicon would be on the page for two weeks, then removed. Matty.007 14:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Thereby serving what practical purpose? —David Levy 14:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Linking the reader back to the main page and telling them that this article is currently exceptional. Technical 13 (talk) 17:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   So...patting an editor/DYK nominator on the back? —David Levy 18:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Not sure how you get from Linking the reader back to the main page and telling them that this article is currently exceptional. to So...patting an editor/DYK nominator on the back?. can you explain that? Technical 13 (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   When I wrote the above reply, I didn't realize that you were under the impression that "DYK declares that an article is of exceptionally high quality". Among Wikipedia articles, an article recently bold-linked at DYK is intrinsically exceptional only in the respect that it recently was bold-linked at DYK. —David Levy 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

3. Oppose Per Crisco 1492: "Erm, what?". Harrias ^talk 14:34, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose. A GA/FA icon indicates an article's current quality designation, not a past occurrence. Main page appearances are properly noted on articles' talk pages, alongside other project information. Even if a DYK icon were to appear for only two weeks, I don't see what practical purpose it would serve. We display icons in articles as a service to readers, not as trophies for editors. —David Levy 14:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Hmm... Only the speaker topicon classifies as a "service" then. The FA/GA or lock topicons are no real "service" to readers. —ШαмıQ✍ @ 14:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   The GA/FA icons inform readers that the articles are believed to currently meet specific qualitative criteria. The lock icons inform readers (most of whom are editors or potential editors) of limitations currently placed on editing. (These, of course, are alternatives to banners.) —David Levy 15:00, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Then what's the difference with DYK having one letting them know that recently an article has met a specific qualitive criteria? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Except that DYK qualification isn't really a "qualitative criterion" in any meaningful, non-trivial sense (i.e. beyond "it's not self-evident total crap"). Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:11, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   (ec) Simple: DYK's criteria are not high enough to make the average reader care, or make it worth his or her time to know. There is little peer review, and essentially no expectations for things a reader may care about (comprehensiveness, being well written, etc.) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:12, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   DYK recognizes expansion (to educate readers about Wikipedia's editing process and encourage participation). A recent DYK appearance doesn't indicate that an article's quality is exceptional. —David Levy 15:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) Agree with The C of E... What we can do is to put that topicon up for two weeks, so that readers may know that the content is relatively new and up to the mark. (free of plagiarism, thoroughly sourced, etc.) @David Levy: Most new articles are full of tags, so DYK articles are exceptional. —ШαмıQ✍ @ 15:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   Such a distinction simply isn't useful to readers. You're basically arguing that most new articles are rubbish, so these articles are exceptionally good for new articles. How is that relevant to the pursuit of encyclopedic information? —David Levy 15:49, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   No, he's arguing that DYK articles are exceptionally good compared to all articles. Technical 13 (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   I disagree with that interpretation (which is based upon a misunderstanding that Wamiq doesn't appear to share). —David Levy 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

5. Oppose. David Levy puts it well. Having been a DYK is not something that tells the reader about some permanent quality of the article, and therefore not something that ought to be marked at the article top. "Service to readers, not trophies for editors". Quite so. If you want DYK trophies, you can have them on your userpage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:08, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   By that logic, GA and FA shouldn't be noted either. Technical 13 (talk) 17:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   A GA/FA icon conveys information about the article's quality (something meaningful to a reader seeking to learn about its subject). —David Levy 18:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   So does a DYK icon. Technical 13 (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

   You appear to misunderstand DYK's format. —David Levy 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

6. Oppose - I think the template on the talk page is the appropriate way to acknowledge DYK appearance and more than sufficient; as others have already stated, DYK appearance is not really indicative of a true quality benchmark, which is covered by the GA/FA process. SagaciousPhil - Chat 15:36, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose per David Levy. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose. FA and GA icons show that the article has a high level of quality. The DYK ? just shows that the article is new or newly expanded, and has met a minimal set of adequate quality measurements. There is nothing particularly interesting in that and certainly not worth permanent recognition, and I see no benefit from a temporary icon that appears for a couple of weeks and then disappears forever. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose – per David Levy and BlueMoonset. Leave the top icons for WP's finest or good work. I've seen some DYKs that fit neither category. —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:18, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose per above and my reasoning at the TfD. LittleMountain5 19:30, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose hence my nomination of the template for deletion at TFD. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 22:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose per everyone else and my comments at the TFA nomination. Events in the article's history belong on the talk page; only icons showing current quality-assessed status of the article should appear to readers (and this does not include DYK, since the article can fail the DYK criteria at any time during or after its appearance on the main page - and many older DYKs wouldn't pass current standards anyway). Bencherlite^Talk 22:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

FPs on DYK

I think it's great that FPs are used on DYK. However, i do not think DYK should use recent POTDs and upcoming POTDs scheduled to appear on MainPage soon. It's better to let another pic get the exposure on MainPage. If an upcoming POTD is to be used on DYK, can the POTD be somehow delayed so that we don't use the same pic twice within a short time? The DYK pic on MainPage right now is scheduled to be POTD in 11 days (Template:POTD/2014-01-30). The two MainPage appearances are too close in my opinion. AFAIK, there is no policy on this. I don't know how much time apart would be appropriate. Current noms that may be affected include Template:Did you know nominations/Velodona (Template:POTD/2014-02-04) and Template:Did you know nominations/Black-breasted Thrush (Template:POTD/2014-02-05). --PFHLai (talk) 13:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

And Template:Did you know nominations/Sainte-Enimie (Template:POTD/2014-02-03). If anyone is wondering, these are part of an effort started by Armbrust at the Reward board to take FPs whose articles are too stubby to appear as POTD and expand hem to be MP-worthy. This almost always means a 5× expansion, which is why these are all appearing as DYK noms. ~HueSatLum 13:50, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• The articles have no issue, policy- or guidelines-wise, running close together. If you are worried about the images, don't select the images for DYK. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Indeed I have promoted one of them without the image. Then the nominator leaves a note on my usertalkpage asking for the pic to be used on DYK. --PFHLai (talk) 14:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• I'd then point the nominator to the POTD page. The new article is bound to get more hits there than in DYK (average DYK: under 1000; average POTD: c. 5k). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• I figure the nominator wants both, and there may be more hits at the top of DYK. I am not against it, just the timing is not ideal. --PFHLai (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Are we all really so cynical that we're assuming that it's being done just for hits? I personally used the FP in the DYK because I think that we should, above and beyond almost any other considerations, make an effort to highlight the project's best work as much as possible. If that means that an image appears in the main page twice, well oh darn, I guess that the image will appear in the main page twice. I doubt most people have the memory to say "oh, that was on the main page two weeks ago in another section". Either way, I swapped out my image for another illustration of the same organism, from the same artist, in the same book. Now there's no problem, right? Sven Manguard Wha? 17:30, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• I personally used the FP in the DYK because I think that we should, above and beyond almost any other considerations, make an effort to highlight the project's best work as much as possible. You hit the nail right on the head Sven – thank you! That's exactly the reason why I requested that the Black-breasted Thrush article be the lead hook. I really couldn't care about the number of hits it gets – I haven't had a DYK with 5,000+ views in over 6 months and am certainly not looking for one now. My main concern was getting quality work featured as much as possible. As I recalled, DYKAR J6 states, "Not every submitted picture can be featured in the picture slot of course, but since only one picture can be featured per update, try to leave the good picture hooks behind for another update if possible" (emphasis not mine). Since FPs are "the visual equivalent to featured articles," this qualifies them as "the best [pictures] WP has to offer." If queue preparers are already urged to "try" to leave good pics for lead hooks, shouldn't they be actively encouraged to do the same with FPs? —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Actually, it's great to have FPs on DYK. I want them on DYK. I am only asking if we should/can do something about the timing. Re-using the same pic within a short period to me is not good. Wikipedia indeed has more goodies to choose from and showcase on MainPage. I do not want to upstage or pre-empt already scheduled POTDs. I am trying to be a nice neighbour here with those who run POTD on MainPage. But come to think of it, it's more of a problem for POTD than for DYK, as the pics in question so far will probably appear in on DYK first, and then appear as a re-run on MainPage when POTD time comes. It would be great if POTDs can be re-scheduled without giving our neighbours extra work, but I doubt this is possible. We can certainly not care about the POTD schedule, and use the FPs whenever we like on DYK. But I don't think this is nice. --PFHLai (talk) 22:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• As the person who has been choosing POTD recently, I should note that rescheduling the image is possible. However, the images that are being discussed here are those which have already been skipped once, some of which should have been run 3, 6, 9 months ago but were not because the article did not meet the minimum criteria I'm using. It's unfair to the photographer to have them wait another 6 months. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• @Crisco 1492: I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused if this FP ends up being rescheduled – I wasn't expecting this to get into such a deep discussion. I was just wondering – why do we have to "wait another 6 months" before this FP can run on POTD? The February queue looks empty from February 7th onwards. Since PFHLai says that 11 days between DYK and POTD is too close, why don't we have this run 3 weeks after it appears as a DYK. Provided that the DYK nom were to be promoted within this week, that would mean the week of February 16–22. Any thoughts? —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
• @PFHLai: Sorry for the comment I made above that came off as criticizing your decision not to use the FP in DYK – it wasn't my intention to do so. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• @Bloom6132: The issue is that a month between pictures is still likely to draw criticism on WT:DYK (and the peanut gallery hates birds enough as it is), so if I were to push this back I'd push it back quite a bit further. Maybe not 6... 4 months, perhaps. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:56, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• @Crisco 1492: 4 months later at POTD sounds reasonable. As far as I can see, there are two possible solutions to this problem:

1. We run the article with the FP now at DYK and wait for 4 months before running it at POTD.
2. We run the article without the FP now at DYK and go according to schedule with POTD on February 5.

You did bring up the concern that it would be "unfair to the photographer to have them wait," but given that the recent slew of bird pics at POTD (5 separate pics of 4 birds in the last 2 months) were taken by that photographer, don't you think he wouldn't mind if he had to wait just a tad longer for the final two FPs to feature? Not to mention the peanut gallery would probably kick up less of a fuss with just 2 separate pics of a bird after a 3 month moratorium, as opposed to 7 separate pics with 5 birds. —Bloom6132 (talk) 20:14, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• I invite you to take a look at the backlog of bird pics. Because people complain if birds run closer than 6 or 7 days, birds are about 6 to 12 months behind other pictures. Right now general POTD is at Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs 34, whereas there are still birds from Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs 29 and 30 which have not run yet. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:02, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK is almost overdue – done

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 #2 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) 22:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• The update has been made, but unfortunately when Sportsguy17 was moving hooks between preps, he forgot also to move the DYKmake credits. As a result, Queue 2 needs an admin to remove the two "Example" DYKmakes and insert the following two credits where the first was:
•   Lavaggi LS1 – Lukeno94 (give) (tag) – View nom subpage
•   Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu – Vensatry (give) (tag) – View nom subpage

If this can be done in the next 80 minutes or so, that would be great. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The credits fix has been done. Thanks, John. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:21, 19 January 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 #3 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) 06:04, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

I've compiled a new set of 37 nominations that need reviewing. Two of them are still from November, so please take them on if you can. We currently have 247 total nominations, of which only 29 are approved. Thanks as always for your reviews.

• November 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Church Clothes 2 (two articles; but only one issue remains to be checked)
• November 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Serafín Zambada Ortiz
• December 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Prié blanc (second opinion needed)
• December 7: Template:Did you know nominations/Musikhjälpen
• December 8: Template:Did you know nominations/Aurora Film Corporation
• December 9: Template:Did you know nominations/Horseracing in the Philippines
• December 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Carleton Washburne
• December 14: Template:Did you know nominations/Freedom and Unity Front
• December 14: Template:Did you know nominations/Seyhan Gündüz
• December 15: Template:Did you know nominations/Mehdi Jomaa
• December 17: Template:Did you know nominations/Gander Green Lane (two articles)
• December 20: Template:Did you know nominations/Tugboat Trabajador (1931)
• December 21: Template:Did you know nominations/Esquiline Treasure
• December 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Swill milk scandal
• December 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Ri Ul-sol
• December 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Cecilia Uddén
• December 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Kitty Jutbring
• December 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Eduardo Arnold
• December 26: Template:Did you know nominations/Swedish nuclear weapons program
• December 26: Template:Did you know nominations/Holy Knights, A Gate Through the Past, Between Daylight and Pain (three articles)
• December 26: Template:Did you know nominations/Kanako Momota
• December 26: Template:Did you know nominations/Efkan Ala, Lütfi Elvan, İdris Güllüce, Fikri Işık, Ayşenur İslam, Emrullah İşler, Akif Çağatay Kılıç, Nihat Zeybekci (eight articles)
• December 26: Template:Did you know nominations/Uppsala House
• December 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Progressive Primitive Baptists
• December 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Hilary Wayment
• December 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Gary Con
• December 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Peithessophian Society
• December 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Josiah Marshall Heath
• December 28: Template:Did you know nominations/Huna Totem Corporation
• December 28: Template:Did you know nominations/Biker bar
• December 28: Template:Did you know nominations/Crocodile farming in the Philippines
• December 28: Template:Did you know nominations/Treat 'Em Right
• December 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Von Bock House
• December 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Aníbal Delgado Fiallos
• December 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Honduran Patriotic Front
• December 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Rape during the Rwandan Genocide

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) 17:20, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Special holding for Jan 22

I promoted Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra to Prep area 3, believing this will move up to Queue 3, and would be 8 a.m. London time on Jan 22. Please feel free to move it if you feel I calculated in error. — Maile (talk) 23:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)