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A fact from C. N. Barclay appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 January 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that British Army brigadier Cyril Barclay certified that he was neither a polygamist nor an anarchist who wished to overthrow the United States government?
No, the vandalization occurred before, when that trivial fluff was added, apparently for little more reason than to feed the Apotheosis of Trivial Fluff (alias “Did You Know!”) at Citogenesis Central (alias the “Main Page”). Qwirkle (talk) 14:50, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Please be mindful of the three-revert rule, although I quite agree that the info is frivolous, especially if those were bog-standard travel declarations. Still, we are better off discussing it here first. Kingoflettuce (talk) 18:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
My apologies for the reversed timing, I hadn’t seen this. Yes, that is exactly the point: bog-standard bumf, that was somehow seen as a good DYK hook. Qwirkle (talk) 18:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I suppose it is a good hook if the only intent is to raise eyebrows and snag as many clicks as possible. But how often does content approved for DYK get removed after the fact? Kingoflettuce (talk) 18:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I dunno how often it does happen, but it prolly should be more. Some of worst inaccurate OR and COI I’ve seen here made it onto the front page that way, or was on track to be put there.Qwirkle (talk) 20:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
It also appears that the info was gleaned from a primary source (that I'm not able to view). Original research? There might have been a stronger case for inclusion if somebody like a biographer decided the seemingly trivial info was important enuf to mention for whatever reason. Kingoflettuce (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, or it might have been useful to flesh out exact dates coming into the country, and so forth, but the mere fact that a primary source is out there says nothing.Qwirkle (talk) 20:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Removing useful links to restore trivial gee-whizz bullshit?
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