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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.

Redlinks in DYK articles[edit]

I recently nominated George Elliot (1784–1863) for a DYK and was told by a DYK reviewer (whom I respect a great deal and I hope this will not be taken as a comment against) that it had too many redlinks to be promoted. The links were valid under WP:REDLINK but I was told that they would have to be delinked in order to have the article feature on the mainpage. While I understand the logic, I disagree with this being part of the guideline (and indeed I cannot see it written down anywhere, either in the official, or the unofficial rules). The links were valid redlinks, and may have encouraged the creation of new content, but I had to delink them solely for the passage of this article through the DYK critera, though I intend (and was encouraged by the same reviewer) to relink them afterwards. I was told that it had 'always been the practice not to promote articles with too many redlinks'. Of the two people who replied to this issue on WT:Main Page, one actually said 'I'd rather have redlinks than people de-linking things just to fulfil some criteria'. I'd quite like to see a confirmed consensus in DYK and MAINPAGE on redlinks in linked articles, and if a particular number or proportion is too many, just what this number or proportion is. Having contributed over 200 DYKs to wikipedia, this is the first time that I can recall that this has occurred. Benea (talk) 03:44, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

No hard feelings Benea, in fact I was thinking about bringing the issue here myself :)

As it happens, I have been under the mistaken impression for a long time that there was a policy somewhere on wikipedia that redlinks should not be permitted in articles highlighted on the main page. When I first started working at DYK as I recall I saw other reviewers turning down articles with redlinks, and just adopted the same practice. But it turns out there is no specific policy about this.

Now that the issue has come to a head however, I am still of the opinion that it's good practice not to promote articles with redlinks. First of all, articles with lots of redlinks tend to look very untidy and unfinished, and removing them at least temporarily while they appear on the main page is a pretty minor task. Secondly, I have found in practice that when challenged, creators will frequently just go right ahead and create a bunch of new articles to remove the redlinks, sometimes even adding the new articles to their hook. So it's also a position that encourages the creation of new content, which in many respects is what this project is supposed to be about. In short, I would support adding some sort of formal rule that articles cannot be promoted until redlinks have been removed. Gatoclass (talk) 07:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm against any rule prohibiting promotion of articles with redlinks. As long as the redlinks pass WP:REDLINKS then there should be no problem, as a few extra hundred readers when it is featured on the main page should "...encourage[] the creation of new content..." far more than asking one person to do it. Secondly, all articles are unfinished, as we don't ever put them into a special status of "complete" once they pass FA or any other content review process. And, as pointed out, DYK is for new content, not completed content or even GA/FA ready content. Redlinks promote growth, and may give the impression we aren't quite done with expanding this encyclopedia, which in some ways is related to one hypothesis for why Wikipedia is bleeding editors (as in the theory is some people have left as there is little new to write about, or little new they want to write about). Aboutmovies (talk) 09:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Suitable, appropriate redlinks should never prevent an article from reaching the main page. Binksternet (talk) 09:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

In this case, I think removing the redlinks actually makes this article worse. Our coverage of the pre-Victorian Royal Navy needs lots of work, and the redlinks in that article were perfectly valid; eventually all of them will be created. Maybe even by one of the DYK viewers who saw what was needed. There's a perfectly logical rule against redlinks in hooks, but I oppose any prohibition of valid redlinks in articles. Yes, FAC or even GAN would not be happy with that number of redlinks, but they both have different standards than DYK. DYK articles need to appear reasonably comprehensive- and this one does- our entire encyclopedia in some areas isn't anywhere near there yet. This nomination was in one of those areas. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 11:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Neither FAC nor GAN have a five-day time limit on nominating articles! I don't think even those ~~black holes of petty bureaucracy~~ processes would be correct or helpful to oppose on the basis of redlinks, but for DYK to oppose on that basis is even more ridiculous! Physchim62 (talk) 11:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the number of redlinks should not be a DYK criterion, for many of the reasons Aboutmovies and Bradjamesbrown mentioned. I don't see Gatoclass's argument that articles with red links tend to be bad ones; this is certainly not true for the Eliot article. Incidentally, red links are not part of the FA or GA criteria. Ucucha 13:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment by Aboutmovies (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 14:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that valid redlinks encourage the creation of content - therefore there's nothing wrong with suggesting that some of them be created to get the pleasant result Gatoclass mentioned, but having them in the article when it's on the Main Page will also serve that purpose. The perception that they're "untidy" is a Wikipedia-centric cultural norm that doesn't in any way reduce the value of the article for the rest of the world.--otherl left 14:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I also think quite the opposite is true as Aboutmovies put it. Having redlinks in an article that appears on the Main Page will remind readers that Wikipedia is far from completed and that their help is needed to achieve our goals, thus their presence is actually probably helpful in getting readers to create those articles. Some articles that are on DYK have very limited exposure otherwise, because they are about very specialist topics or of minor public interest and as such their redlinks may not be noticed for a long time if they don't get a major exposure and DYK can help to achieve this. Regards So Why 15:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SoWhy heartily. So long as it passes WP:REDLINKS there shouldn't be a problem. DYK is more about new articles, oftentimes in underwritten topics (such as the pre victorian navy) that need attention. Although there are a lot of redlinks they seem valid. 'NativeForeigner' ^Talk/_Contribs 17:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with many of the above (AboutMovies, SoWhy, etc) that we should be encouraging redlinks in DYK articles rather than asking for their removal. The WP:REDLINKS page is very straight forward and fair minded about what kind of links are acceptable and I disagree with the notion that their presence makes an article look untidy. On the contrary, redlinks contributes a lot of tangible benefits to the article in that it shows readers (and potential editors) what areas of Wikipedia still have room for exploration and development. It reminds readers that Wikipedia is still dynamic and growing. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I overstated my case. I didn't intend to suggest that articles should contain no redlinks at all, just that they should not contain an excessive number of them. I have never, for example, challenged an article on a biological order that has lists of redlinks for species in the order, because that's obviously a legitimate use of redlinks that is also informative. Benea's article was really not a good example for a "test case", but as I was about to challenge another article with what I felt were an excessive number of redlinks, I thought for the sake of consistency I should do the same in his case.

My main concern is about articles with an excessive number of redlinks, often for topics that are unlikely to ever be created - but since the latter problem is covered by WP:REDLINK in any case, perhaps we can do without a DYK-specific rule. I do intend however to continue encouraging submitters to fix redlinks, as I have found in the past it's often all that is needed to motivate the creator to fill in the redlinks themselves. Gatoclass (talk) 00:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I think suggesting creating those articles is an excellent idea, or even recommending the removal of redlinks for articles that will not realistically be created. It sounds like there's consensus that articles should adhere to WP:REDLINKS, but no other remedy is required.--otherl left 00:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Call me a heretic, but I am with Gato on this. "Red links" merely paint some words in red color that makes them flashy - that is how I feel most main page readers might treat them. Let me give an example which I know as an AIV regular: vandals use red links (and bold letters) as a tool to accentuate nasty messages. "Urging to create new articles" might be how some experienced editors above perceive red links (no disrespect meant). I would definitely not set any a rule eradicating red links, or reject noms based on that, but I would reserve to the reviewer a right to request removing excessive red links. Materialscientist (talk) 01:13, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I think some thought should be give to the issue of whether the "red link" is worthy of an article or not. Sometimes I have pursued a red link, only to find there is no information available on the subject, and probably never will be, as the subject is obscure and not relevant to other articles. —mattisse (Talk) 01:23, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

.. which reminded me another situation, close to a true DYK story: An editor X places a red link having their idea on how this article should be named; then an article is created on this topic under another name, but X creates their article going by their red link. This is unlikely to happen with many names from wikispecies, but many other topics (even chemical articles, believe my word) can have unexpected names which are not covered by redirects. Materialscientist (talk) 01:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Redlinks should be allowed YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars photo poll) 00:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

rewrites[edit]

Shouldn't there be some way to indicate when an article was completely re-written?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs) 17:51, February 13, 2010 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "completely re-written". DYK has accepted articles that have undergone a 5x expansion for years. The mission of DYK is highlighting new content and a 5x expansion guarantees at least 80% of the article in new. The problem comes when a rewrite does not include a sizable expansion of article prose size. In such cases it often requires detailed knowledge of the article subject for a reviewer to determine if the article contains new content or is simply a reshuffling of previously existing text. As such a level of prior knowledge can not be expected of DYK volunteers, nor do we have the labor force needed to research subjects to the level needed for proper analysis, rewrites that do not include significant expansion are not accepted. This is an imperfect solution but given the limitations we function under has the advantage of working. --Allen3 ^talk 18:56, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I mean where you blank the article except for the title but I see your point. Thanks for the response. JPatterson (talk) 03:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

One legitimate reason to do that is in the case of a copvyio. I'm not sure whether the blanking would count as the start of a 5x expansion if it was done by the expanding editor. If someone else did the blanking, then I can see that it could be argued as the start point for the expansion. A better way to deal with these is to get the copyvio deleted and then create the non-copyvio article from scratch. Mjroots (talk) 06:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

We actually have an exception for copyvios to this rule (rule A4 and WP:DYK1P#copyvio). Ucucha 13:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I have now nominated an article completely rewritten today (Template talk:Did you know#Olof Strömstierna), where the previous version was a partly nonsensical automatic translation (from Google Translate). Such a rewrite should count as a new article. "Cleaning up" an automatic translation actually requires re-translating from the original or completely rewriting from other sources, even if the result may not end up five times longer than the previous version. --Hegvald (talk) 20:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

(copied from T:TDYK). I think I would support promotion of this article, on the grounds that the previous version was just plain nonsensical. I've thought for a while the existing rule on this is a little too restrictive, and we have precedents for promoting articles on grounds other than COPYVIO, such as articles which were obviously personal essays. The original rule was incorporated basically because assessing quality is for the most part too subjective a judgement, but when one has an "article" that is transparent nonsense, it's a quite straightforward assessment. Gatoclass (talk) 02:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The one I rewrote Numerically-controlled oscillator was in similar shape. It was complete nonsense probably written by an engineering student or hobbyist. It seems to me that a simple before and after diff would suffice to make the case but that doesn't get around the problem of finding qualified volunteers to judge. Of course, nonsense can't be sourced, as was the case here. Maybe the rule could be that if less than 5% is left after removing unsourced material it counts as a rewrite.JPatterson (talk) 04:42, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

When I said "nonsense", I didn't mean merely woefully incorrect content. I meant word salad - text that literally makes no sense at all. I don't think we can extend the exemption to content that is just incorrect, because there is no way to readily quantify such problems. Gatoclass (talk) 09:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

If article length is important, we should use the character count on the article's edit page (and double the 1500 limit to compensate), and be done with it. An unwritten attempt to distinguish unsourced material, nonsense, and/or verbal salad, would add even more details to the Article Length Department of Did You Know's hazing rituals for newcomers. Stability will be reached when we spend all our time debating such distinctions instead of producing a finished product. Art LaPella (talk) 21:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Prose length is used instead of article character length due to the fact that character length can be trivially added with no corresponding added value to readers or the encyclopedia as a whole. As an example of this please take a look at User:Allen3/blankarticle, an "article" that contains over 25K characters of source text with zero readable text. Anyone familiar with wiki markup and a couple of commonly used templates should be able to produce similar "articles" of arbitrary size with nothing more than repetitive use of their browser's copy-and-paste function. --Allen3 ^talk 22:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

But User:Allen3/blankarticle only has the following: Prose size (text only): 119 characters (60 words) "readable prose size". That is no where near the 1500 character minimum. —mattisse (Talk) 00:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Off course one could replicate that code text and add some useful text to have an article with any large ratio of code bytes to article prose. What worries me though is that DYK check gives non-zero count on an empty page. Materialscientist (talk) 01:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

That appears to be because the empty {{cite book}} templates still generate a non-breaking space. Ucucha 01:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Prose can be bloated as easily as any other component of an article. It can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can, it can ... Or less trivially, I could repeat that same point in fifty different ways until I fill up this page. Art LaPella (talk) 04:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

When I review articles, I often copyedit them to remove such bloat. If that means the article gets under 1500, too bad. Ucucha 04:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Good for you. In the blank article example above, you would presumably notice the mismatch, check the edit screen, and similarly remove the bloat. Art LaPella (talk) 04:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Bluntly bloating the blurb is a sin :-) My motto is reputation of the editor is much more important than one DYK "award", and it is much easier to ruin that reputation than to build. Materialscientist (talk) 04:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a sin that tempts the first-time DYK contributor the most. Do you think bloating would become a bigger issue if we counted the whole article, and do you think that outweighs all the beginner's confusion and recurring drama we have now about arithmetic? Art LaPella (talk) 05:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a choice: too many articles contain infoboxes and other templates, which are perfectly valid, but do not contribute to the textual content; the byte size of those templates is absolutely arbitrary. Materialscientist (talk) 05:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

If so, that's the point I'm missing. Here is the first DYK example I found with an infobox. You couldn't bloat Template:Taxobox without everybody noticing. Even if the infobox were less well known, how would its size be more arbitrary than the arbitrary size of bloated prose? Art LaPella (talk) 06:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Many (even experienced) editors copy/paste a template with all or nearly all fields in it, even if only a few are filled with data. User:Allen3/blankarticle is an example. I do not feel like deleting those empty fields from some infoboxes because some fields will be filled soon, and because it takes time to recover some of those fields (as they are not documented in the template) Materialscientist (talk) 06:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, that's a reason anyway. I'll think about how that possibility compares to our current recurring dramas such as "I should just convert my list to prose!" (countered by our alleged power to detect "listy" prose, which greatly exceeds our ability to detect typos), "Oh I didn't know spaces counted", "Sorry, I thought it was words, not characters", "My table entries are so long they are effectively prose", "But WP:DYK says to use Javascriptkit" (which doesn't exclude anything), "he said 1200, she said 1400, I said 1700", "It's x characters with spaces, y without, z words, ...", experienced DYK editors who still don't use DYKcheck, "I just found another block quote, so that should get me to 1500", and this drama. Art LaPella (talk) 03:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Procedural questions about things that I could try, but I might break something[edit]

Two simple questions:

The template instructs admins to "purge the cache of the Main Page so that the updated version appears." Does this somehow purge the cache for everyone, or does it simply purge the cache of the updating admin's computer so that s/he knows that the update was successful?
In the "next update" section of the template, there's a section for "Last updated: [number] minute(s) ago.", along with links to verify, reset, and purge. If I hit "reset", will that delay the next update? Nyttend (talk) 01:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

That refers to this link: [1]. This instructs the server to re-assemble the Main Page from the templates that feed it, and thereby purges the cache for everyone. Ucucha 01:22, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The link ([2]) leads you to the edit page of the DYK timer, which the bot uses to determine when to do the next update. We normally don't have to edit it, since the bot is functioning. Ucucha 01:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks; I didn't know that the cache could be purged for everyone, and I was afraid that clicking the "reset" link would reset something instead of taking me to a page from which I could reset something. Nyttend (talk) 01:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

February 14[edit]

February 14 has been removed. Joe Chill (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Found it back. Ucucha 19:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Huehuetenango Department in Queue 2[edit]

Note that the credit section in Queue 2 is pointing to the wrong article (Huehuetenango instead of Huehuetenango Department) - I'd fix it myself but I don't have the user rights. Best regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 22:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed it. Ucucha 22:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ucacha! Simon Burchell (talk) 22:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Links in DYK hooks[edit]

I think that the DYK hooks on the main page are overlinking to articles and really should only link to the nominated article (similar to how disambiguation pages should only have one link per line). It is confusing and annoying when one clicks on a link in the DYK hook and ends up at the wrong article. PleaseStand (talk) 23:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The link to the DYK article is bolded. The additional wikilinks clarify the hook (example, by simply pointing the mouse to "Indian" the reader would understand whether it is about India or America) and also attract readers to those articles, which is not bad for WP. Materialscientist (talk) 23:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

In a sea of text, the bolded link is hard to distinguish from the others. On allowing multiple links but bolding the main one: why do we not do it that way on DAB pages? PleaseStand (talk) 00:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe because there are many many thousands of DAB pages and the Main Page is one? :-) Seriously, extra efforts are made to facilitate understanding of the main page by a wikipedia newcomer. If you wish to modify the wikilinking of DAB pages, it is best to discuss it with the community at a corresponding desk. Materialscientist (talk) 00:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The Main Page and dab pages serve to very different functions. The former is intended for casual site visitors, providing them with reasons to read further; the latter is designed to reduce the confusion caused by similar terms, and thus radically reduces the number of acceptable links. On disambiguation pages we certainly don't want a "sea of text," while the Main Page uses bold to set apart the white caps on the waves of that sea, if you will.--otherl left 01:24, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with MS and Otherleft in that the additional links serve valid functions, especially with providing context. That said, we can always be extra mindful about whether or not the additional links really do enhance the context or are just WP:OVERLINKing. The BorgQueen frequently will trims hooks of excess linking and that is perfectly acceptable. There is plenty of room for a happy middle ground between having some added links for context and avoiding having too many blue links. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 02:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK bot crash[edit]

Some update happened at system level about 9 hrs or so ago. That crashed editcount tool and the owner had to adjust the code to fix that. I suspect for the same reason DYK bot failed to start at last 2 updates. Users Ameliorate!, PeterSymonds and Nixeagle could help, but are not very active these weeks. Ideas? Materialscientist (talk) 06:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I've left a note on PeterSymonds's talk. I can't see anything on the toolserver email list that corresponds (timewise), but I'll keep an eye out. Shubinator (talk) 06:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is the thread about editcount. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm, interesting. If it's something on the code level that's gone bad, we're out of luck. PeterSymonds doesn't have access to the code, and Ameliorate! and Nixeagle haven't edited at all recently. Shubinator (talk) 07:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

PeterSymonds says it won't start. Shubinator (talk) 04:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that's it for our bot. :( So what should we do? Perhaps ask at the bot requests page whether someone is willing to take over the task? DYKadminBot's old code is still available somewhere and might be used as a start by a willing operator. Ucucha 04:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I can probably code another one. I don't have much time now, though; I can start working on it over the weekend. I do have a head start from DYKHousekeepingBot's code. Getting a toolserver account will also take a while. Shubinator (talk) 04:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Before reading this, I have reposted a tweaked version of the previous request by SoWhy. The previous request was fruitless. Shubinator would be an ideal candidate for the bot writer/operator; the issue is important and I won't hope for miracles. These days, I'm Ok to run 3 updates/day manually, unless noted. The update of 6pm UTC is impossible for me. Materialscientist (talk) 05:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Well this sucks. I haven't been active here lately, but ping me if you need an update anytime. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll likely be able to do the 6 pm update tomorrow and Thursday. Shubinator, it would be great if you could run a DYK bot in the future. In the meantime, we'll have to do stuff manually. Ucucha 05:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

True, it would be great. I suggest you request an account on toolserver as soon as you can, so you have it ready once you can start working on it. Regards So Why 12:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that someone contact the admins willing to participate so those who are less active at DYK (like myself) will make efforts to pitch in until this is resolved. The older admins like me are used to doing this manually and probably are fairly proficient. I would do the contacting, but I have to leave now. Royal broil 13:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I can also help - used to do it by hand and can pitch in as needed. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Next update[edit]

at 6:00 pm 16 Feb I am offline and the bot might not recover (10-15 min. is a max time for him to wake up). Thus after 6:10, would any admin please copy the hooks from queue 5 and paste into the current hooks at T:DYK. Just in case, if unsure about other steps (queue count, timer, credits), it would be fine just to leave them be - I can fix that later, before the following update. Materialscientist (talk) 12:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll be available. Ucucha 12:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha 18:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I probably won't be available to do tomorrow 6 pm UTC update, so we need another admin for that. You can follow the instructions of Materialscientist above (including copying from queue 5). Ucucha 19:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I will do this Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:53, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Acceptable source for hook?[edit]

Can a self-published source by someone in the Department of Biology at the University of Wisconsin be used as a source? The source has a lot of interesting facts that I can't find elsewhere: http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/TOMS_FUNGI/apr2002.html Joe Chill (talk) 23:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Should be fine for did you know. The guy's an academic, and an expert in the subject, so even if it isn't peer reviewed it's a pretty reliable source. Marylanderz (talk) 23:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I've used this one for FACs, so it should be ok here ;-) Sasata (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this specific source should be Ok, but. A general answer is no. Many universities offer free web space to any staff member and allow publishing there anything which is not clearly offensive, thus it is merely a blog. Strictly speaking, even this page shouldn't be allowed, because it is not the refereed version of an article, but another one, where the author could have inserted statements, which were objected by referees or were missing in the original article. This would be not unusual in science. In this case, however, I would AGF the author that this version is only slightly modified from Inoculum 53(2): 4-8. April 2002, most likely with web enhancements. Materialscientist (talk) 23:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Lonicera nitida[edit]

My hook for Lonicera nitida was moved back to the template talk page from the prep area just because one person doesn't understand the hook. Should I change it to ...that Lonicera nitida is at the Osborne House? Joe Chill (talk) 22:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe the problem was that the hook did not contain enough information to concisely make its point known. It read as the plant was clipped to form deer, which unfortunately, really doesn't make too much sense in itself. Looking at the article, I believe you meant to state that the plant is cliped to form curved turf shapes in the shape of deer. Kindly Calmer Waters 23:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I was that "one person"; Joe Chill, feel free to just name me here. I could only make sense of the hook after I read the source, and have now re-written the relevant sentence in the article and proposed an alternative hook at T:TDYK#Lonicera nitida.

In general, I think it is an excellent reason to return a hook to the suggestions when someone does not understand it; after all, hooks should be understandable for everyone, and it is often possible to fix such problems. Ucucha 23:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't want to say a name because I thought that it might come across as an attack to someone if I did. Joe Chill (talk) 23:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Battle of Ciudad Juárez hook[edit]

I have removed this hook from T:DYK:

... that the Boer general Ben Viljoen, the grandson of Garibaldi, and Hollywood Western star Tom Mix (pictured) all fought for the rebels at the Battle of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican Revolution?

Ben Viljoen says nothing about his father/grandfather, and Giuseppe Garibaldi II says that he fought in the revolution and was original Garibaldi's grandson. Battle of Ciudad Juárez, the bolded article, says that Viljoen was Garibaldi II's son. And why is grandson linked to Garibaldi II's article? —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 06:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ed, read again, it is "Ben Viljoen" and "the grandson of Garibaldi". Materialscientist (talk) 06:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OH, that makes so much more sense now. The construction of that statement made me think "grandson of Garibaldi" was referring to Viljoen. Perhaps this hook would be better clarity-wise?

... that the grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Boer general Ben Viljoen, and future Hollywood Western star Tom Mix (pictured) fought for the rebel force in the Battle of Ciudad Juárez, part of the Mexican Revolution?

If you think so, let's add it to P1, as I took the bridge article hook from there. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 06:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Added and fixed the rest. Materialscientist (talk) 06:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry for the confusion. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 07:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, sorry for the confusion - never thought about it. Thanks for fixing it.radek (talk) 08:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Entirely rewritten articles[edit]

I think entirely rewritten aricles should also qualify. They are more or less new because they are completely different from old vers. Kayau Voting IS evil 10:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This inevitably raises a question of why the article was rewritten. If the past version was too bad then some reviewers can discard the old version and consider DYK as new article (but they don't have as we can't properly evaluate articles from all areas). If not then .. imagine the former author comes out of vacation around the DYK day and legitimately starts edit warring .. we surely don't want that. Materialscientist (talk) 10:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Unless the past version was completely rubbish, you'll inevitably incorporate the information there in your rewrite. You may reword it and present it differently, but it is still "already existing" material. Considering the massive amount of nominations it's not possible to review how much an article is new, so we use the clear guideline of fivefold expansion. As F2 says, that should be "... five times as much prose as the previously existing article – no matter how bad it was (copyvios are an exception), no matter whether you kept any of it...". Otherwise, all you will need to do is reword a whole article and nominate it as a "rewrite". ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 11:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think reviewers should be allowed a discretion on complete rewrites. We all know that there are plenty of articles out there that need thorough copy-editing and citations: I will hazard a guess that there are a million articles on enwiki that have no references at all. DYK is a reasonable tool to promote the improvement of such articles, and hence the encyclopedia as a whole: apart from anything else, it already exists so no one has to create a structure from scratch. The argument that "we've always done it this way so we're going to keep on doing it this way" is hardly convincing when you consider the development of WP since DYK was first created. Physchim62 (talk) 12:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

But it does promote it through the 5x expansion rule. And if an article does not require 5x expansion there is always GA or FLC.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

True but there is a large gap of possible improvement from taking an article with the kind of unsourced, POV saturated mess that makes Wikipedia look bad to a full fledge, decent article and then taking it all the way to FA. There is a lot of benefit that comes to Wikipedia within that large gap and DYK can help fill that niche. Eventually I do believe DYK will need to embrace rewrites more and I suspect one of the ways will be holding them to around a 3x expansion versus a 5x for an article that started out much smaller. This obviously won't happen overnight but as the culture of DYK shifts towards promoting more quality oriented articles (which it clearly has already shifted towards with full article citations, etc), this is the next natural step of that evolution. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 14:33, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

An adjustment on the 5x expansion rule is certainly a possibility.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I've thought a rule that either a fivefold expansion, or a significant expansion to an article that was already fairly large; would make more sense than a strict five-fold expansion. An article that is already 20,000 characters long does not need a fivefold expansion; but bringing it to 40k would still be gracious plenty work. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 14:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I almost added something similar above.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Entirely rewritten articles can go to GAN. They're not what DYK is for. No one will die if they don't get a DYK for their work. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course no one will die if they don't get a DYK! But what is so special about new articles? Simply the fact that DYK has always worked like that? Already, Did you know? is far too often Did you care?, a simple award for editors rather than a tool to improve the encyclopedia. That can be seen in the number of readers who actually chose to click on a DYK blurb, compared with the clicks on surrounding main page areas. If DYK is incapable of accommodating a few article rewrites into its structure, then it is completely unworthy of the main page space it is currently occupying, IMHO. Physchim62 (talk) 15:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As Rjanag said - improved articles are for GAN. We can't endorse rewrites for DYK because it would encourage people to do unnecessary rewrites just so they can get a DYK sticker and their handiwork on the main page. Gatoclass (talk) 16:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I honestly don't think there is such a thing as an "unnecessary rewrite". No one is ever going to try and rewrite the American Civil War just to get a DYK but someone may try to rewrite an article like Industrial warfare (22kb prose) which certainly would benefit from a complete overhaul. Really any rewrite of a poorly referenced or POV saturated article is a necessary rewrite which Wikipedia will only benefit from its encouraging. Again, as I noted, DYK has been making deliberate strides this past year towards focusing more on quality. Why? Because it is for the good of Wikipedia to encourage better articles. Encouraging rewrites of articles like Industrial warfare, even if it may only be a 2-3x expansion, is the next natural step of DYK's evolution. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to extending DYK to improving crappy articles. "Rewrite" is probably not the best word; I'd rather focus on articles that are (for example) completely unreferenced. But it's going to be complicated, and I am not sure whether we'd be able to handle it logistically. Ucucha 16:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Logistics is always the problem. Unlike 5x expansion, there's no objective way to measure "improving" an article. If an article is totally unreferenced, how many references need to be added to constitute a "rewrite"? If the prose is terrible, how much copyediting needs done? If the article is full of OR, how much of it needs to be trimmed? To the best of my knowledge, the only cases in the past where we've allowed rewrites are when the previous version of an article was complete copyvio (literally copy-pasted from somewhere), and even then it's often caused an extended discussion for just one article. With a 100-200 noms on the suggestions page at any given time, there's simply no way an extended review could be done for all of them. Plus, since there would be no objective guideline, when reviewers make the inevitable subjective decision ("this article isn't improved enough yet" or whatever), nominators would throw a fuss and come here and take up even more time. It's simply not a workable proposal, even if the spirit of it is good. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

If we do this, we should probably simultaneously bump the length requirement up to 2000 or 2500. For rewrites, we'd need a bright-line rule. One example I can think of is going from an article without any references to a fully or nearly fully referenced article. That doesn't seem unworkable to me. Ucucha 21:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not a bright line, though; that's subjective. What is "fully referenced"? One reference per paragraph (see the numerous discussions that have been had about a "one-ref-per-para" rule)? One reference per sentence? One reference per thing that needs to be cited (and who determines what constitutes one "thing that needs to be cited")?

And, that is all beside the point... once you get to a point where you're reviewing an article in that much depth and trying to decide if it's "fully referenced", you're doing a GA review. GA is for identifying quality articles; DYK is for identifying new articles (as long as they meet some minimum quality bar). If something is greatly-improved quality material but not new material, it belongs at GA. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Agree. It is too much to ask of reviews, I think, to evaluate a "rewrite" that does not have clear parameters for inclusion as the 5x does. Should we have criteria a la GA that the rewrite is NPOV, has satisfactory referencing, covers the subject broadly, etc.? Too much burden on reviewers, I fear. DYK has been remarkably uncontentious lately, compared to the olden days. Hate to see that change. —mattisse (Talk) 21:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You have a point about the contentiousness which should serve as a word of warning for the "pro-rewrite crowd" (including myself). Encouraging more rewrites will undoubtedly force DYK to narrow it selection to truly interesting hooks and quality articles. The days of featuring mundane hooks from 2000 bytes new articles about obscure politicians or athletes will be less because when you suddenly have an influx of several high quality articles, it is harder to find time to review and feature the lesser offerings. Our current DYK burden comes from the desire to make sure that most every eligible new article that passes the criteria gets featured, even if the hook is boring. That desire is why we sometimes have 10 day+ backlogs. From some perspectives, DYK only picking the cream of the crop would be a great side benefit of allowing more rewrites. But as someone who has been nervous before about the contentiousness that will come with using subjective "interesting/boring" standards for DYK selection, I admit that is my only worry about encouraging rewrites. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 21:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who has done a fair few rewrites, I don't think DYK is the place to include them. I think 5x expansion works just fine, and from time to time it's motivated me to a massive expansion of an article, a few of which have then gone on to GA or FA. At the moment reviewing a hook is reasonably straightforward, with DYKcheck and a fairly rapid read through the article. If rewrites are permitted, the whole DYK thing becomes more confused and moves it more towards a sort of sub-GA review. Secondly, the whole idea of DYK is to encourage new submissions or substantial expansions, so every eligible article should go through and the backlog now will be nothing compared to what it will become if every rewrite has to be trawled through - just look at the backlog on GAN, where articles are usually not picked up by an interested reviewer for quite some time. I also tend to dip in and quickly review a DYK submission when I have a few minutes to spare but not the time/access to references to write stuff; that would not be so easy if I was reviewing for a rewrite. Simon Burchell (talk) 22:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As an editor uninvolved in DYK except to nominate the occasional article – some of which have been turned down – I'll offer my opinion that expanding the remit of DYK in the way being proposed here would be an absolute and unmitigated disaster. If DYK becomes a GA-lite then it will die, just as GA will if it becomes FA-lite. Each process has different goals, and DYK's goal, rightly or wrongly, is to encourage the writing of new articles and the expansion of small ones. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

To sum up:
FOR:

Good development for DYK
Encourages rewrites

AGAINST:

Makes DYK sub-GA
Difficult to review

As nom, here are my points:

I would define 'completely rewritten' as follows:
- Content tripled
- References tripled (if the previous version has unsufficient refs; in case of no refs at all, I say at least 2 more)
- No overlapping sentences with original EXCEPT for the 1st sentence of the lead section
- Appropiately linked - introduced good links and removed bad ones
- Suits the naming convensions (including that for sections)
- In other areas other than those mentioned, similar to the DYK.
Sometimes, articles that used to be trash can be completely rewritten so it's, well, another thing. The old one may contain POV disputes, inappropiate tone, bad section names, etc. If all these are settled in the new section, but the article is still, say, C-class or start-class and doesn't qualify for GA, then why not DYK?

Kayau Voting IS evil 02:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

So basically we are going to make it a threefold expansion rather than fivefold? And how do we measure "insufficient refs"? An article, although badly written, may already have enough references. "No overlapping sentences" means you just change the words a bit. "Introducing good links and removing bad ones"; how do we measure that? You do realize the amount of work that will take, don't you? "Suits the naming conventions" is a requirement for all articles here, and something that is obviously expected from a DYK article already. In short, I'm not sure how this would improve the quality of DYK articles (it seems to me like it will be reduced even further) or how it would make the reviewing process easier (which seems to me closer to a GA review, in which case even fewer people will be willing to do it). ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 03:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Chamal, I see the problems. As a reviewer, I don't want to have to check all this- it takes me a couple hours to do a through GA review (Though I haven't done enough to get efficient at them), and around a minute to do most DYK checks. Too many of these suggestions are function creep, instruction creep, or both. While I personally would be fine with taking 2x or 3x expansions for articles that were already of a good size; no change at all is preferable to some of the suggestions that turn DYK into a glorified B-class review; which some of these suggestions would do; and which the current team of reviewers would have little chance of keeping up with at a 32-a-day pace. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 04:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the gist of most of these "rewrite proposals" is to essentially have a 2-3x bar for rewrites of articles that are already in the 10,000+ size. Anyone who is doing that substantial of a rewrite is most likely already going to be improving the kind of things Kayau is suggesting. I think we can keep reviewing simple by just lowing the 5x mark for larger rewrites. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 04:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That is what we are in fact already doing; we regularly make exceptions to the 5x expansion rule for large and good articles. Formalizing (and perhaps expanding) such an exception may be good, but would also make the rules more complex. Ucucha 04:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"References tripled" disturbs me quite a bit. It sounds like something that would encourage ref-puffery—either adding lots of pointless sources (passing mentions, duplicates of other refs, etc.) or adding multiple footnotes to every trivial claim. References should be used where they're needed, for the sake of improving the article; they shouldn't be used for the sake of satisfying some arbitrary requirement. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what WP:IAR is there for. If a very large article is a few hundred characters short of a 5x expansion, there's no problem with it getting passed. On the other hand, nobody tells us to pick a 10,000 character article and try to go for a DYK with it. These should be treated on a case by case basis, and there's no need to make DYK even more obscure by adding more rules. It wouldn't really be fair either IMO. Can we reject a nomination where a 9,000 character article was taken to 40,000 characters, but pass a nomination of a 10,000 character article that was taken to 30,000 because we have different limits for them? That's just going to create more problems. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 06:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Next update and error[edit]

I did the most recent update, but there was an error in Queue 5, which listed two editors for the article Titus Turner here, but neither of them wrote the article. I have given DYK credit to the actual main editor and apologize for the mixup.

Also someone else will need to do the next update at 0:00 UTC Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I should be around. Shubinator (talk) 22:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

One author was added by the true author. The name of true author was then chopped in some technical error. I'm watching 3 updates/day, but the update of 6pm UTC someone has to cover every day. Materialscientist (talk) 01:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Cuello was on DYK yesterday[edit]

Cuello is currently in Queue 4, however it already appeared on the main page yesterday. Regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I replaced it with another article of yours. Ucucha 20:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Simon Burchell (talk) 21:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It was I who promoted Cuello directly to the Main Page to adjust the column length. Somehow it didn't get deleted at T:TDYK, thanks for noticing that! Another example of how extra eyes help DYK operation. Materialscientist (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Olympics holding area[edit]

Once verified, we should maybe start utilizing the Olympic hooks and working them into the queues. Would hate to not use them until after the Olympics is over. I'll start a couple of review. Calmer Waters 03:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll start some tomorrow, and thanks. 'NativeForeigner' ^Talk/_Contribs 06:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Juanita Wilson[edit]

One of the articles I created/expanded for International Women's Day (March 8) is on the Main Page now. I don't mind but why or how did this come about? --can dle •wicke 01:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably someone just made a mistake. Gatoclass (talk) 02:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Notified the promoting editor. Materialscientist (talk) 02:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It's right in the middle as well, thought it would have been an N9 "funny or quirky hook" for that day - oh well. --can dle •wicke 02:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No excuse, I missed the nom taken from special area; as to the quirkiness, IMHO, the last hook in the current set beats yours :-) Never stop improving :) Materialscientist (talk) 03:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Bradford Scobie[edit]

The February 8th nom for "Bradford Scobie" is stuck in limbo over one editor's well-meaning objection. I disagree with this objection and would be very appreciative if someone else would please take a look at this before it’s too late. Thanks very much. --Griseum (talk) 02:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

But it is never "too late". --can dle •wicke 12:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

A suggestion for the William Mudford hook[edit]

I just noticed that the William Mudford hook uses italics for the The Iron Shroud short story but quotes for the "Pit and the Pendulum". Wouldn't it be better for the sake of uniformity both stories to be in italics?

... that The Iron Shroud, written by William Mudford, influenced Edgar Allan Poe's writing of the "Pit and the Pendulum"?

Thanks. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 03:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it, but used quotes for both short stories, which I think is more conventional. Ucucha 03:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Great. Thank you very much Ucucha. Take care. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 04:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

DYKUpdateBot at BRFA[edit]

I've finished coding DYKUpdateBot, and it's now at BRFA. It does everything that DYKadminBot used to do, with some improvements. Many of DYKadminBot's errors won't appear in DYKUpdateBot (like not archiving, not noticing {{DYKnom}}, not following redirects, tagging example credits, tagging nonexistent users, omitting characters if $ appeared, etc). I've also added a feature: DYKUpdateBot will tag DYK images/files with {{DYKfile}} (like {{dyktalk}}). Anyways, the code's here if you want to check it out. Shubinator (talk) 05:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

That is wonderful! Let me be the first to say Thank you. Calmer Waters 05:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Great! Ucucha 12:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't believe it! This is too good to be true. I'll believe it when I see it :) Gatoclass (talk) 14:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Knickerbocker Theatre[edit]

The article on the Knickerbocker Theatre in the next queue has been moved from Knickerbocker Theatre (Washington, DC) to Knickerbocker Theatre (Washington, D.C.). Someone needs to fix the link in the queue. Marylanderz (talk) 01:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha 01:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Request for additional wikilink in William Mudford hook[edit]

Since I have just created The Iron Shroud, could this wikilink be added to the Mudford hook please? Thank you. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 04:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Added. Materialscientist (talk) 04:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks. Take care. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 04:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)