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Template:Did you know nominations/Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:20, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

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Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections

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  • Reviewed: IOU Template:Did you know nominations/Arudji Kartawinata
  • Comment: This article could be contentious, but I think that a fact based hook should be okay. It's slightly older than 7 days from the time of the article creation to my nomination, but that's because it was nominated for deletion and I did not want to nominated until that closed.

Created by Muboshgu (talk) and XOR'easter (talk). Nominated by Muboshgu (talk) at 21:12, 4 August 2019 (UTC).

  • General eligibility:
  • New enough: No - This article was created on 24 July 2019. The earliest time this article could have been nominated was 31 July 2019.
  • Long enough: Yes
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes
  • Interesting: Yes
  • Other problems: No - Doesn't give context for non-US readers.

QPQ: No - Pending...
Overall: –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 02:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

  • @MJL: Considering the article was at AfD until yesterday I think it's fair to give the nominator some leniency on the usual deadline and not just close the nomination outright. No opinion on other criticisms. – Teratix ₵ 04:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
    @Teratix: Am I allowed to do that? –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 04:32, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
    My understanding is that if a reviewer uses it means "this is not suitable for DYK" and marks the nomination for closure. If you merely mean it requires more work but could still be eligible, generally or would be the appropriate icons.
    You are, of course, allowed to do this, but I think the issues with the article are fixable and the seven-day deadline should be relaxed. – Teratix ₵ 04:46, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
    Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see this on the main page because I think it shows the diverse types of content Wikipedia has to offer (I can't recall the last election related page that got promoted). I just don't want to get in trouble.
    I've switched the status to "again" if that helps. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 04:51, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
    Question: is the "doesn't give context for non-US readers" criticism of the hook based on the hook not explaining who Robert Mueller is? (I worked on the article, as noted above, but I have no real experience at DYK.) XOR'easter (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
    @XOR'easter: Yeah, pretty much. To anyone who doesn't really know why he is significant, then they don't know why the whole hook is important. If there was info about how he just spent 2 or so years investigating Russian interference in US elections, then it'd be a good hook.
    @Teratix: I don't know if you're still interested in reviewing this or anything? –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 21:10, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
    I don't trust myself to assess the neutrality of a US politics article :) – Teratix ₵ 00:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
    A couple possibilities that sprang to mind:
    ALT1: ... that according to Robert Mueller, who led a twenty-two-month-long investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections is ongoing?
    ALT2: ... that according to Robert Mueller, who led a twenty-two-month-long investigation into misconduct surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election, Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections is ongoing?
    XOR'easter (talk) 13:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
I like both ALTs. QPQ is provided. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:15, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Reviewer needed to check the two ALT hooks and also to make any other needed checks, including the submitted QPQ. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:54, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The article was new enough (given the AfD) and long enough. QPQ was done, it addressed one issue, and the reviewed article hook appeared on the main page on 18 August. Earwig shows copyvio unlikely. The article has sufficient inline citations.
I have some concerns about neutrality. There is discussion on Talk:Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections about possibly retitling the article, as it also mentions interference by China and Iran. One of the sources also names North Korea, and another names Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, however, they are not mentioned in the article. One editor suggests that retitling would involve a controversial move discussion on the Talk page. Those comments date from 30 July 2019, but have not been followed up. Pinging the editors who participated in that discussion: @Pilaz: @XOR'easter: @Muboshgu: @Theoallen1:
I also note that on 7 August there was an IP edit saying "Don't read this stupid bullshit, they have never interfered in out elections. The Democrats just can't handle the fact that they lost and no one wants their shitty policies in the US. Liberals please all of you go die." If this article appears on the main page, I think it might need some protection to avoid more of that kind of vandalism.
As far as the hook is concerned, although the Mueller investigation has been widely reported (I've read about it in Australia) I wondered whether it might be of more widespread interest to mention that the director of the FBI is concerned about foreign interference in the 2020 election, as many people know of the FBI through movies, TV shows, etc. Also, I think it might be more neutral to say just "foreign interference", or "foreign interference from countries including Russia, China and Iran". RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:10, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
The article should be moved. I oppose the nomination. Theoallen1 (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
I see no pressing need to rename the article, given that Russia is consistently the primary concern across all the sources, and other countries can be discussed as broader context. Nor do I think it is an urgent matter to restructure the article, though it is now getting long enough that division into sections might be appropriate. XOR'easter (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@RebeccaGreen, Muboshgu, and XOR'easter: Since it has been almost a month since the last comments here, where do things stand now with the nomination? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 02:22, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Narutolovehinata5, I was not sure where to go on this. Only two of the four editors who were involved in the discussion on the article's talk page responded to my ping, one to say the article should be moved to a new name, and the other to say there was no pressing need for that. And there has been no further discussion on the talk page, so it seems that there is no urgent feeling that the article should be renamed. I still think that the article would be more neutral if it was named Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections, as other countries have been named, such as in the NYT article of July 19, 2019: "Intelligence officials said the new post reflects the reality that influence operations by Russia, China and other countries are likely to continue indefinitely." So I guess I do not feel that I could approve this DYK nomination as being within the WP:NPOV policy. (I expected that name to be a redlink, but it appears that it's a redirect to "Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections". Why not the other way round, which would better reflect the content of the article?)
If someone else approved it, my preference for a hook would be ALT1, as mentioning "foreign interference" as the context in which there is evidence of Russian interference.
I also mentioned above that I think the article might need some protection if it does appear on the main page, as there has already been one instance of vandalism of the article. Is that possible? RebeccaGreen (talk) 02:52, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
RebeccaGreen, I apologize for missing the last ping. I see renaming as a good idea. This topic is like a germinating plant at this stage, considering the election is more than a year ago. I'll do it WP:BOLDLY if noone objects. ALT1 is fine with me. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:15, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
I've decided I'm going to move the page. Many sources are talking about "foreign interference", the page covers more than just Russia, and something will probably need to be added about the Trump/Guiliani/Biden/Ukraine thing. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi Muboshgu, that looks great! I am much happier about the article meeting NPOV policy now, and the sections also make the article easier to read. Would you like to have a go at tweaking the hooks, or writing some new ones, so that they reflect the new article title? If you could do that, I could approve some - or I'd be happy to have a go at writing hooks and then ask for another reviewer to check and approve them. RebeccaGreen (talk) 10:16, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
​​ The changes look good! I particularly appreciate the division into sections. Here are tweaked versions of the two ALT's given above:
ALT3: ... that according to Robert Mueller, who led a nearly two-year-long investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election, foreign interference in the 2020 US elections is ongoing?
ALT4: ... that according to Robert Mueller, who led a 22-month-long investigation into misconduct surrounding the 2016 US presidential election, foreign interference in the 2020 US elections is ongoing?
I agree that some level of page protection would be a good idea, just as a precautionary measure. XOR'easter (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, XOR'easter! Now, I have a couple of questions:
  • using digits for "22-month-long" is encouraged for hooks, even though in articles it can be written out in letters or digits; indeed, numbers like "nine" that are normally written out can be shortened to "9" for a hook.
  • The fact that the investigation ran for 22 months must be in the bold-linked article; it is not enough that it is in one of non-bold linked articles. If this were a multi-article hook with more than one bold link, then the fact only needs to be in one of the bold-linked articles, not all of them.
  • There's no reason not to use the abbreviation of "US" for "United States" in the hook, but the article title itself doesn't need to be changed, just the link: foreign interference in the 2020 US elections. You might want to use "United States" in full the first time it's mentioned, and "US" after that, but probably two "US" in a row will be clear enough (so "2016 US presidential election" would be fine, too, and it has its own redirect already). But not "US" followed by "United States".
I've made the necessary adjustments to this template to reflect the article move from "Russian" to "Foreign"; nothing else needs to be done (and this template should not be moved). BlueMoonset (talk) 16:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Thank you, BlueMoonset. I have made those basic tweaks in ALT3 and ALT4 (twenty-two > 22, United States > US), and both ALT hooks are now below 200 characters. We still need to address the other issue, of including the length of the investigation in this article. That should be fairly straightforward - I'll look at it tomorrow, if no one else has. I'd still be interested to hear what Muboshgu and XOR'easter think about using the phrase "foreign influence" in the first half of the hook, so we avoid repeating "foreign interference". RebeccaGreen (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Approving ALT3 and ALT5, per my review of 28 August 2019 above, and now that the neutrality issues have been addressed, with the article moved to a more neutral title, and also broken into sections and updated. As well as the tweaks mentioned above, in ALT3 I have replaced "22-month-long" with "nearly two-year-long", as that is what the sources actually say (including the one which has now been added to this article).
  • Promoters or Admins please note - XOR'easter and I both think that this article will need some protection while it is on the main page, to avoid vandalism such as this IP edit on 7 August 2019 [1]. Protection is new for me - is there something I can do to request it, or will promotings editors or approving admins deal with it? RebeccaGreen (talk) 06:32, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • ​ I guess there's always WP:RPP, but maybe this is a thing that an approving admin can just take care of. Surely it's a known risk for DYK items. XOR'easter (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • We don't protect pages proactively. As an admin, I can protect the page if it comes under sufficient vandalism. But, I may be busy so RPP is there. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:48, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your reply, Muboshgu. I had thought I'd seen mention somewhere of pre-emptive protection, but perhaps I'm misremembering. So I guess this article can take its chances, and hopefully someone will notice if there is any vandalism while it's on the main page. RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:15, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • RebeccaGreen, maybe you saw something I didn't. It doesn't hurt to ask an uninvolved admin. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:19, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
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