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Queue 4 promoted, need somebody to do credits

I've done the promotion of Queue 4 to the main page but, as fate would have it, after many days without a hook of mine in the pipeline, this queue has a double from me. (And not on Oregon radio stations for a change. Okay, they're both Washington state radio stations—it's a small change.) So if somebody could follow this link to the credits and do the notifications, I'd be much obliged. Thanks. - Dravecky (talk) 04:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

My turn to pick up the credits! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Really disappointed

Resolved

 – rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:31, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't want this to sound like sour grapes, but I'm really disappointed Raymond Steed has been listed for DYK without the picture. He was the youngest British person to die while fighting for his country in World War Two (aged 14), and the picture really brought home the tragedy of this fact. Actually, is it possible to pull this from the DYK queue, as I would rather it didn't go in at all without the photo?-- Myosotis Scorpioides 20:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it was moved back to the discussion page, but it looks like your nomination is still at T:TDYK here. I agree that the image would probably be good to use, by the way - precious young face, it would make the hook poignant. Jamie^☆S93 01:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Oceanh (the same user who promoted it) moved it back. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:31, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

There's no "pictured" next to his name in the hook in the queue. -Freekee (talk) 19:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. --BorgQueen (talk) 19:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

eligibility of new articles replacing copy vios.

I skimmed the archives but the answer didn't jump out at me. If an article gets deleted as a copyright violation and an entirely new article is created in its place, is the new article eligible? To further complicate the issue, what if the copy vio article has been around for several years? Vicarious (talk) 23:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Copyvios do not count toward expansion limits, so the answer is yes, a newly written article replacing a copyvio will be eligible providing it meets all the usual criteria, including the fact that it has to have been written/expanded within five days of nomination. Gatoclass (talk) 00:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Urgent intervention required

Wehwalt has just changed the hook I authored for Lydda Death March here. Please note that the "handful" claim was unduly highlighted in the lead by another editor and is not borne out by a review of the sources cited in the lead to support that sentence. Please change it back to how it read prior to his change. I consider this to be highly inappropriate. And the fact that Wehwalt did not bother to inform me is also very poor form. There are numerous discussions about this issue on the talk page that should be reviewed as well to get the full picture. Tiamut^talk 13:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I skipped the queue for his round so discussion can happen. Royalbroil 13:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I left a message for Wehwalt on his talk page. I'm hoping he will come here and explain his change and restore the version that accurately represents what the sources have to say on the matter. Tiamut^talk 13:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I also left a message at the talk page of the article alerting other editors to the existence of this discussion should they wish to participate. Tiamut^talk 13:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you use a different hook? Something that isn't disputed - like the 50,000 to 70,000 figure? Is there another interesting fact? Royalbroil 13:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess we could, but its not really disputed. Did you read the footnotes attached to the sentence at the page? The estimates are all pretty much in agreement. Morris' lower figures are based on guesstimates and even he concedes a figure of 335 attributed to Nimr al-Khatib. Tiamut^talk 14:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

It is actually very much disputed - with a notable historian (Benny Morris) giving the figure of a "handful" or "dozens", and dismissing the higher figure as "hearsay". There are editors edit-warring to keep any mention of lower estimates out of the article, in violation of WP:NPOV NoCal100 (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Your accusation is false. No one is edit-warring to "keep any mention of lower estimates out of the aritcle, in violations of WP:NPOV." The lower guesstimates by Morris are included in a footnote. They come from a 2003 work of his and his 2004 work upgrades the estimate and cites 335 by Nimr Al-Khatib. There are people edit-warring to unduly highlight the lower estimate by selectively quoting one part of the 2003 work and placing it in the lead in the main text. You are one of them. This is despite the extensive discussions on the issue, in which you have not participated. Tiamut^talk 14:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You have edit warred and violatecd 3RR on this article, repeatedly removing the lower estimates from the lead. Facts which are so highly contested should not be used in hooks for DYKs. NoCal100 (talk) 15:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Please support your claim that I violated 3RR with diffs. And these facts are not highly contested in the literature on the subject, though they are highly contested by you. Tiamut^talk 15:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, please support your claim that the number of deaths is disputed, with a source that acutally says that. Otherwise, I am forced to conclude it is merely your opinion. Tiamut^talk 15:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Please see User:Tiamut/DE for an explanation of the "dispute". For the purposes of the DYK nom, I am open to suggestions on an alternate hook if people feel that is what would be necessary to get the article a chance to enjoy its day in the sun. Tiamut^talk 17:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't see any serious problem with the estimates of the dead. The figure is not known exactly. Primary sources (accounts from people who were there, or who were involved, or who interviewed survivors) either say we can never know how many died (Glubb Pasha), or they give figures such as 335 (Nimr al-Khatib) or 350 (historian Aref al-Aref). [1] Secondary sources seem to agree that around 350 is a reasonable estimate. Martin Gilbert, a conservative, pro-Israel historian, settles on 355 (possibly confusing the 335 and 350 figures, or possibly having a third source): "On the eastward march into the hills, and as far as Ramallah, in the intense heat of July, an estimated 355 refugees died from exhaustion and dehydration." [2] Another secondary source, historian Benny Morris, has settled on a number of estimates over the years, ranging from a "handful" to "dozens" to 335.

I think it's therefore fair to say something like, "... that up to 355 Palestinian Arabs are reported to have died, mostly of dehydration and exhaustion, during the Lydda Death March of July 1948." Or "up to 350" if you think Gilbert confused 335 and 350. The point of mentioning Gilbert is not to achieve accuracy, but to show that the rough figure of 350 is accepted by mainstream historians, including those known to be sympathetic toward Israel. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:28, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Secondary sources do not agree that around 350 is a reasonable estimate. Specifically, Morris, the most notable historian of that bunch who is known as highly critical of the "official" Israeli historical narrative, says the number is "a handful" to "perhaps dozens", and calls the higher end of the range "hearsay". The proper way to present these viewpoints in the lead is to say that "estimates range from as few as a handful to as many as 350". And in terms of best practices, contentious figures such as this should be used as the hook in DYK. NoCal100 (talk) 17:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure the figure is all that contentious, NoCal, given that Martin Gilbert seems to accept it as reasonable. That doesn't mean it's correct, but it does mean that it has passed into the mainstream. As for calling the figure "hearsay," any figure is going to be "hearsay," in the sense that you're relying on survivors' accounts and estimates. The same goes for a very high percentage of estimates of the dead throughout history. So long as we say "up to 355," we're making clear that this is the high end of the estimate. Or we could qualify it further, e.g. " ... that a number of Palestinian Arabs, possibly as many as 355, are reported to have died, mostly of dehydration and exhaustion, during the Lydda Death March of July 1948." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:42, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Since NoCal100's suggestion is a compromise, and allows the full range of figures proposed, it seems reasonable to accept that solution. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:44, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for compromise, but I suppose I'm wondering why NoCal thinks 350 is hearsay, but "a handful" isn't.

Another possibility is to take a fact from the article that no one disputes, e.g. "... that George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was a survivor of the Lydda Death March of July 1948." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

That's an excellent alt hook suggestion SlimVirgin. I'd be willing to accept that as a compromise solution for the purposes of the DYK hook. Tiamut^talk 17:56, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Where is the compromise in that? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The compromise is that it doesn't mention any figures, or anything disputed. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Good hook, more straightforward and not disputable like the earlier ones. Jamie^☆S93 18:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

That was not clear. But, seeing that the figures are likely to find their way back in eventually, I think NoCal's suggestion is the best. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

So we're agreed that SlimVirgin's alt suggestion is the way to go? - Dravecky (talk) 18:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

looks like a good compromise suggestion. Article still seems to have an ongoing dispute raging on the Talk page. LuvGoldStar (talk) 18:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Not really. As Tiamut has explained repeatedly she's chosen a title recommended by an Oxford reference source: The Oxford companion to military history, a first-class reference book. The current, single, dissenting voice has no clear rationale for rejecting this reliable source and hasn't even edited the article. I am hoping therefore that you will be content to see the tag removed. Given the general attitude on Wikipedia now we will no doubt have the RFC, AFD and arbitration case to enjoy in due course. Ian Pitchford (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I see that even as I was writing the comment above, the previously uninvolved editor brewcrewer (talk · contribs) has now moved the article without consensus to "Exodus from Lydda" - a title with no actual connection to the events it covers. Here we go again. Ian Pitchford (talk) 19:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

SIngle disssenting voice? The way I count it, it is 5 editors against "Death March" in the title, 3 for it. LuvGoldStar (talk) 19:26, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

6:3, actually. LuvGoldStar (talk) 19:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) The article clearly has a content dispute going on. I don't think an unstable article should be featured at DYK. We don't have an explicit rule at DYK (yet) on article stability, but the other content areas (GA, FA) have such rules. Settle the dispute elsewhere, then bring it to DYK. Shubinator (talk) 19:28, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

agree. LuvGoldStar (talk) 19:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. The title should of course be that recommended by the reliable source consulted; not a consensus of Wikipedia editors, even if such a consensus exits, which I don't think it does. Ian Pitchford (talk) 19:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I agree with Shubinator here. There seems to be constant edit warring going on right now, and rapidly-unfolding discussions on the talk page. The instability of the article was the very thing that caused the problem that started this thread; as far as I can tell, Wehwalt's change to the hook was based on some disputed text that had just been inserted into the lede. If the article is unstable enough to trick an experienced admin into accidentally making a possibly incorrect change to the hook, it's definitely not in good shape to go to the main page. You still have a few days within the DYK time window, I think we should take this back out of the queue and revisit it later. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, it looks like I weighed in just a couple minutes too late. The article is on the MP right now; the admin who updated the template said there was consensus to promote it, so if that is the case then I'm ok with that, but if edit warring continuesI'd suggest taking it off quickly. (To clarify: I just mean if edit warring continues among the editors who have already been fighting there. If new people are brought into the article from the DYK hook and disagree over stuff, that could actually be helpful; after all, one of the purposes of DYK is supposed to be to bring in new eyes to an article.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:21, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The article content is stable with a number of editors contributing consensually. The problems are User:LuvGoldStar'sWP:DRIVEBY and brewcrewer (talk · contribs)'s unilateral page move. However, I've been editng here for four years and I'm acutely aware that there is no mechanism for making sure that policy is applied and so we don't have any choice but to go with your suggestion. Thanks for making it. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. It's there with the meaningless title. Ah well. We tried. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Admin help required

Resolved

 – Awadewit (talk) 23:51, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Could an admin move the "next update" and "next next update" to the queues so that we can fill them up again? We are oh, so backlogged here and I thought I would try and fill up the queues. Awadewit (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Dravecky did it. Shubinator (talk) 22:03, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Always happy to help but, wow, that's a startling edit summary. - Dravecky (talk) 23:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

R2

Should R2 be changed to say that edit warring should be resolved before approval? See User talk:Art LaPella#DYK rules question, probably referring to the above #Urgent intervention required. However, R2 already applies to the above because it has a neutrality template. Art LaPella (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I support the added clause. Shubinator (talk) 03:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I support as well. Awadewit (talk) 03:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done Art LaPella (talk) 22:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Too early for April Fools?

I recently wrote a few articles that seemed to suggest an amusing (to me anyway) hook - 'that the Royal Navy accepted a gay Viking and a gay Corsair into their service during the Second World War, with another 12 gays joining in the 1950s?' and suggested that it might be worth holding off until next year, in the spirit of the recent lesbian related April Fools DYK hook. They've been put forward for the current series of queues though. I've no particular issue with them being shown now, but I would probably have held off writing them for a bit if I had known that the consideration for April Fool's hooks started later. Having them with the usual April Fool's day style front page might also reduce the (hopefully slim) chance that some people might take offence. Benea (talk) 14:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The capitalization is wrong (I know, it's supposed to be funnier if it's lowercase). --NE2 14:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree its funnier that way, but I could see someone popping up on 'errors' to report that. The names should be italicised as well, but that's another hint to what's coming. All the more reason to run this as an April Fools thing, unless there's a good reason it shouldn't? (Come to think of it, DYK '... that fluffy bums suck on passion vine juice?.' is about to go up too. That seems another good one to hold on to). Benea (talk) 15:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I dunno...to be honest, I think it's a bit juvenile and, like you suggested, may be offensive if it's run on a day other than April Fools (it might be offensive even on April Fools, but I guess lots of those hooks are). I don't remember what the recent lesbian-related hook was, but anyway I'm not so sure about promoting this one... rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:40, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Way too early to do April Fool's stuff yet. Wizardman 22:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think gays would have a problem with the hook, since the last time we asked them they actually conspired with us to make the hook even raunchier! I don't really see any particular reason though to try and "fool" people into thinking this is a hook about homosexuals, even without proper italics and capitalization it's pretty obvious this is about ships. I think the ship names should be properly formatted like normal ship names, the hook will still be amusing from a modern perspective, as "gay" has come to mean something entirely different from what it did back then. Gatoclass (talk) 23:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

As we know, all gays agree on these things. :) Awadewit (talk) 07:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's put it this way. We didn't get any complaints last time :) Gatoclass (talk) 07:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

As a member, and probably the most vocal one, of the Gay Cabal, I approve of the hook by Benea. However, I would suggest temporary semi-protection of the related articles. They will obviously be a target for vandals and their gay jokes/hatred. - ℅ ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 08:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There have been complaints: Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors#Capitalization of "Gay" --NE2 20:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and changed it. The articles are high quality, obviously, but that kind of hook really isn't appropriate outside of our April Fools' sillyness. J Milburn (talk) 21:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would certainly agree. I switched the capitalization to lowercase at T:TDYK (left a comment), but only intended for that to be used if the hook ran for April Fools (albeit a while from now). I guess that wasn't clear enough. Best, Jamie^☆S93 21:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I would have liked to have withdrawn it or suggested a different hook(s) for these articles had it been clear that there was not going to be a holding for April Fools, as I agree the hook was intended to be misleading. I don't know if there was any way to avoid this other than by some admins being quicker on the uptake here, though ideally this would have been discussed a little more on the suggestions page when I first put forward the idea. Just out of interest though, when can April Fool's day hooks start being proposed, in order to avoid this sort of thing happening again? Benea (talk) 21:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like hooks for 2010 have already begun. Last year, discussion for 2009 AFMP started a long time before the actual day. I think it's fine to propose hooks for 2010 right now, it's never too early – as long as the creator/nominator of the DYK is willing to wait that long for their article to be promoted. Jamie^☆S93 22:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

So should we start to nominate articles directly there then? Since this is rather against User:Wizardman's comment earlier of 'Way too early to do April Fool's stuff yet', have people failed to get their stories straight? I think we should be told! :) I had no problem with waiting, would have preferred it even. I'm just mildly dismayed at comments like 'that's completely inappropriate. It reads like an April Fools' joke', when that was exactly what it was intended to be! The last thing I wanted was to have a hook considered inappropriate go up on the main page, especially as I had warned about it beforehand. Benea (talk) 22:39, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion re Queues 3 and 4

The lead hooks on Queues 3 and 4 would be more time-zone appropriate if switched. The hook regarding the 17th Century Spanish painting is more appropriate for the European daytime time slot, and the American football/Attorney General hook is definitely more appropriate for the American daytime slot. Cbl62 (talk) 16:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Y Done Good idea, I delayed queue #3 and pushed it to queue #4. I updated from the previous content found in queue #4. Royalbroil 03:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Move next updates to queues

Could an admin move the "next updates" to the queues so we can keep filling? Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 03:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I had to update the main page first. I moved the next update, but the next, next update isn't full yet. Royalbroil 03:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Weird - it was back when I posted that. Filling now. Awadewit (talk) 07:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

And they're clear again. Enjoy. - Dravecky (talk) 07:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Awesome. My finger is getting tired from clicking! :) Awadewit (talk) 07:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 4

I've updated but can someone do the credits? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 10:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll do them. ∗ \ / (⁂) 11:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. ∗ \ / (⁂) 11:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Notice

2 hours since my DYK hook has been on the main page and still no notice on my talk page? Good thing I was "watching" the relevant pages. ;] - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 03:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

And apparently none of us from this update was notified. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 03:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Be still my beating heart. Awadewit (talk) 03:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Har. Har har. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 03:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Dravecky just did the credits. Shubinator (talk) 03:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I'm sure PeterSymonds just got diverted after performing an otherwise complete update. I've completed this set of credits but, and I say this to anybody reading, anybody can do the credits after an update, not just an admin, so if you find that credits haven't been completed then you can do them yourself. Only takes a few minutes and occasionally people leave nice thank you notes on your talk page. (You're welcome.) - Dravecky (talk) 03:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I would have certainly done it but I've never been involved in DYK other than in the last month - and that's only been in submitting hooks, no gnome work - so I didn't know what it entailed on the backend. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 03:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 3

I've updated but can someone do the credits please? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 20:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll do them. ∗ \ / (⁂) 21:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. ∗ \ / (⁂) 21:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Split items

Could a DYK article include one that has been split off recently?

Simply south (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Only if the split content is expanded fivefold. For example, if you take a 1,000-character chunk out of Article X and use it to start Article Y, then Article Y must ultimately be 5,000 characters (or 4,000 characters' worth of new content). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:33, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Queue 5

As I suggested above, and as Q5 is next up.. the related articles for the ...that the Royal Navy accepted a gay Viking and a gay Corsair into their service during the Second World War, with another 12 gays joining in the 1950s? hook should be temporary semi-protected as no doubt they will be targets of vandalism/pranksters. - ℅ ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 18:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've semi-protected each of the three articles for 1 day which should deflect at least some of the vandals and/or pranksters. - Dravecky (talk) 21:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Since when are articles protected pre-emptively from vandalism? WP:SEMI says (with emphasis added): "Semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used solely to prevent editing by anonymous and newly registered users. In particular, it should not be used to settle content disputes. Today's featured article is very rarely semi-protected, despite the increased vandalism that results from its presence on the Main Page, except in particularly serious cases. For guidelines on protecting articles linked from the main page, see Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection." Bencherlite^Talk 22:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, and they're unprotected again. Enjoy. - Dravecky (talk) 23:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Since we normally do protect things that appear on the main page. The question is, when did that change? - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 23:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

We normally don't protect things, but I think this can be an exception. As for TFA, it's usually not necessary to protect it because there are hundreds of experienced editors watching it nonstop while it's up; the same can't be said for most DYKs. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

We normally protect the items that are directly included on the main page, such as the list of hooks at DYK, or the summary of today's featured article, but not the articles that are linked from the main page (save that the Featured Article will be move-protected). There's been no change in that. The articles in fact were linked from the main page at DYK for a couple of hours with no vandalism, so fears were ungrounded. Bencherlite^Talk 09:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Queue 5 promoted, credits need to be done

It's 4:30am here and I'd appreciate it if somebody could follow this link and do the credits. I've done the update, the archiving, the incrementing, and the resetting but the credits still remain. Thanks. - Dravecky (talk) 09:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

On it. :) ∗ \ / (⁂) 09:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. ∗ \ / (⁂) 09:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. - Dravecky (talk) 09:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 1

Updated, but can someone do the credits? Thanks in advance. --BorgQueen (talk) 23:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's my turn. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The deed is  Done. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Notice

My contributions are under Arbitration. Therefore, I will not be contributing to DYK or the encyclopeida in general until the case is resolved. Thank you to all for an enjoyable experience at DYK, a truly pleasurable place to work. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 03:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Credits?

I've been trying to familiarize myself with the DYK process over the past few months, but I haven't yet handed out the credits. How does this work? Is there a script that facilitates the process? Can only admins do it? Are there instructions somewhere? Thanks for the help! Awadewit (talk) 15:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've never done credits either. If you find better instructions than WP:Did you know/Adminbot#After the update, I can change that document. Art LaPella (talk) 18:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hook duplication List of number-one singles of 2009 (Japan)

Guys, I saw two hooks for article, List of number-one singles of 2009 (Japan) in Template:Did you know/Next update and in Template:Did you know/Queue/6. Is it a mistake or else? Cheers!--Chanaka L (talk) 01:12, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

A mistake; looks like Imperator forgot to remove the nom from T:TDYK the first time he promoted it. I've removed the duplicate from Next. Thanks for the notice, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 5

Updated. Can someone do the credits, please? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 03:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I can do them. Royalbroil 03:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 3

Updated. Can someone do the credits, please? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 15:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I can. I was wondering why the queue hadn't been cleared yet, but decided to check this talkpage first. :-) Jamie^☆S93 17:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've actually gotta go now. Didn't even start, sorry. Jamie^☆S93 17:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

If someone could answer my question above, I would be happy to do so. Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 17:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a script (DYKcredithelper or something like that; I think it shows up in the editnotice when you give credits) but you don't need to have it; even doing it manually it takes under a minute, and you don't need to be an admin. What I do is basically this:

1. On the queue page, hold down "control" and click all the "give" links. These will edit the author/nominators' talk pages.
2. All that clicking will have opened up like 10 tabs (all the talkpages being edited). In each of those, the title of the DYK article is visible in the preloaded section title. Copy that into the article= part of the edit window, and save. Then close the window.
3. Back at the queue (now that the user credits have been given), hold down "control" and click the "tag" links (for articles that appear more than once, like when the article had multiple contributors, you only need to click the "tag" link on the first entry). This should open 8 new tabs.
4. In the editnotice for the first new tab, there will be some text like {{dyktalk|2009|7 May}} or something like that. Copy it, and then paste it into each talk page (below the various banners, but above any actual discussions that may have started). Save all those edits.
5. After that, you should be done. Leave a message here so an admin knows it's done and can clear the queue.

That probably makes it look complicated, but it's actually pretty simple and intuitive; it's just a matter of a bunch of clicks and you should be done within a minute or so. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I was going to give an explanation and did the credits for KKEE already as examples (diffs), hope this did not cause any confusion. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I have done it. If someone could check my work this first time, I would appreciate it. Thanks so much for the detailed instructions! Awadewit (talk) 17:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I checked all the author notices and a few of the article notices and they all looked fine - thanks and well done, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

To me, that procedure doesn't sound anything like WP:Did you know/Adminbot or WP:Did you know/Guide (both old pages linked from the newer WP:Did you know/Learning DYK; the Guide is also linked from WP:DYK), so should either or both of those be changed? Art LaPella (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not really a "procedure", it's just what I do (basically, a long and complicated way of saying "click all the links"). I don't think there's a need for anything to be changed. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I've always right-clicked the links to open a new page. But now that you mention it, opening a bunch of tabs is probably not only quicker, but also more reliable. I'll have to try that, thanks for the suggestion :) Gatoclass (talk) 00:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

FYI, the script for doing credits is User:Ameliorate!/dykeasymode.js (instructions at the talk page). I've never tried it, but it's there for adventurous souls. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Neither have I, I really must give it a try. Gatoclass (talk) 00:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I do it manually (also never tried the script). Rjanag's procedure hits the nail on the head. It's also good to add an edit summary for the article talk page edits. Shubinator (talk) 00:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I tried Rjanag's method and didn't like it much, I guess because I have my browser set to activate any new tab I open, which means I have to keep going back to the original queue page. So I think I'll probably stick with my existing method.

Still haven't tried easymode yet. Gatoclass (talk) 04:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 1

Updated. Can someone please do the credits? --BorgQueen (talk) 17:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, will do. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 17:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Done; the Q can now be cleared by an admin. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 17:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I cleared it Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Assistance

Would anyone happen to know if the source used for the hook is a reliable source? Also, I'm not 100% positive that the Internet Movie Database can be used as a reference. In general, I don't think the article is adequately sourced enough. I count only one source that looks to be reliable. What does everyone else think? CarpetCrawler^{message me} 00:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

• IMDB is not a reliable source. I agree with your assessment and the nominator has had consistent problems using unreliable sources. Responded at the hook. Awadewit (talk) 00:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Cited hook

[3] I restored the prior wording, as consensus exists for this prior version. Cirt (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The restored version implies that if you prefer an inline citation method other than footnotes your articles can not be featured on DYK. I doubt the change undermined any consensus. Yomangani^talk 00:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Would like to hear some other thoughts and discussion on this. Cirt (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I actually agree with Yomangan here (and I'm glad this got brought to discussion). Even though footnotes are the most common citation style, we should accept Harv as well if it should ever appear. I'm not sure what other citation styles are out there on WP, but as long as the article is consistent within itself and allows us to easily identify the source I think it should be fine. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree we should accept any citation style, since Wikipedia has no agreed-upon style. The most important point is that the article needs references, not what style they are in. Awadewit (talk) 00:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Also it should be noted that the phrase "at the end of the sentence" was removed. Cirt (talk) 00:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that the hook fact should always have what I refer to as a "direct" inline citation, meaning an inline citation as close as possible to the fact, and without any intervening stuff (i.e., so the reader knows the citation is for that fact, and not for something else); in most circumstances, that means at the end of the sentence. But this has been a controversial issue for at least the past couple months, with some people thinking a citation shouldn't be needed that close (and even I grant that sometimes a citation several sentences away will suffice, if there is a logical flow so that you can tell it's a citation for the same fact...that is not always the case, though). So I didn't really have an opinion on whether that removal was ok or not...personally, I would like "at the end of the sentence" to stay, but I know it's controversial. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay well certainly if it is as you say controversial, then a possible change merits discussion. Cirt (talk) 00:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

How about "usually at the end of the sentence"? Awadewit (talk) 00:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That phrase was redundant, since the more illuminating rule which follows says "The hook fact must have an inline citation right after it...". The "end of the sentence" could be a long way from the fact. (By the way, I also removed "text" from "prose text" on a following edit as it too was redundant). Yomangani^talk 01:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be any real disagreement over the changes I made, I've restored them. The desire to specify where the citation should go seems like overkill to me. In the drive to push only high quality articles to the main page, let's not forget the stated aim of encouraging other editors to create new content and improve existing articles. Servicing the readers that will never contribute is fine, but one goal of DYK should be trying to convert readers to contributors and persuading new contributors to stick around. Stricter and more complicated rules might increase the quality of the articles that get out to the DYK section, but they also provide less opportunity for the readers of those top-notch articles to cross the divide. The DYK rules page is daunting enough to discourage most new editors already. Let's look at the placement of the citations as an opportunity for somebody to improve an article rather than trying to enforcing everything through the DYK rules. Yomangani^talk 17:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Wrong link

One of today's DYK's, the Mr. Mum one Irving Phillips, is linking to the wrong Bizarro. It should be going to Bizarro (comic strip) instead of Bizarro. Dincher 13:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you for the notice. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Glad to help. Dincher 18:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Credits please?

Bot still not working so I've done the update, but I'm too tired to do the credits, my vision is getting blurry. Can someone else do them please? Gatoclass (talk) 17:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

On it. Shubinator (talk) 17:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done Shubinator (talk) 17:26, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Heads up - queue 2

Updated, but can someone please do the credits and archiving? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 23:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

On it. Shubinator (talk) 23:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done Shubinator (talk) 00:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A graduated standard for DYK?

Floating an idea here: current DYK standards make it difficult to qualify for expansions on anything larger than substubs. It would be good for the encyclopedia to encourage major expansions on larger articles too. Suppose we allowed 3X expansions on articles that begin at least 10K. Durova^Charge! 18:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

This suggestion has come up before and our rules are very complicated already, but if everyone used DYKcheck then instruction creep exceptions like this one could be automated. Art LaPella (talk) 19:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Durova's idea is very good - we should encourage the revision and improvement of existing articles that have accrued random speculation, original research, or whatever over time. Awadewit (talk) 19:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea and one that merits discussion - but the archives for DYKs is called Recent additions, and T:DYK is mainly meant to highlight new articles. Cirt (talk) 19:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Cirt, saying pretty much the same thing) My understanding of the past discussions was that already-large articles aren't DYK's target anyway. The idea was that if you had an article that was already 10k and you pour a lot of work into it, you should take it to GAN or FAC, not here. DYK was meant to showcase stuff that's new, not necessarily massively improved.

Of course, that's just my understanding of the discussion, it may not be the exact consensus. And it was a past discussion anyway; things change, DYK will eventually need to change too. I'm just bringing this up as a reminder—the original reason DYK rules made it difficult for already-large articles to qualify was that DYK didn't (as far as I can tell) want already-large articles anyway. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think one important issue to consider is that some people work on DYK articles to get main page time - we could encourage people to revise and improve existing articles, if we gave them the opportunity to get on the main page without getting all the way to FA. Awadewit (talk) 19:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The encyclopedia is moving away from creating new articles and toward improving the articles we have. It makes sense for DYK to encourage improvement. It will still be new content added, just not a separate article. In response to the 3X on 10K, if someone has a 9K article, they'd have to expand to 5X, or 45K (compared to only 30K for an article with 10K to start). Maybe we can say 5X or 20K of new prose, whichever is less. Shubinator (talk) 19:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Do not like the idea. That is for medal collectors rather than those interested in new content, which I thought was the main mission of DYK. There is some sort of award that requires a DYK along with a GA etc. to obtain, the Four something award, so that becomes a motivation to expand DYK. I would prefer to see DYK retain its original mission. Additionally, appealing to people's aggrandizing motivations (main page space) should not be the goal of DYK, in my view. It used to be a simple little award that arrived by surprise. Now it is a major political battle ground for professional promotion. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

We can create new content in old articles. Compare this with this, for example. I completely rewrote this article, added sections, expanded sections, and sourced material. I significantly improved the article. We should be encouraging this kind of article rewrite. (Sadly, altruism does not motivate everyone on the project.) Awadewit (talk) 19:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I would hope that for larger articles, people aren't failing them because they're "only 4.6x" or something like that. I always found that to be an unwritten exception, longer starts don't have to have 5x if they're close. Wizardman 19:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I've expanded more than 5 pages starting with over 8k each. So, I don't see where the above is necessary. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It is not always possible - the research on the topic may preclude such a large expansion. It may not even be desirable. Awadewit (talk) 20:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think at this point what is being proposed is stretching the application of T:DYK a bit too much. Perhaps instead it'd be more appropriate to take this discussion to another venue, similar to something like Wikipedia talk:2008 main page redesign proposal, and discuss highlighting C-class articles or WP:GAs in some fashion. Cirt (talk) 20:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Ottava Rima has done a fine job of complying with the spirit of DYK regarding expansion. Perhaps there needs to be another "award" for those that do not fit the rather simple guidelines of DYK. Not every article expansion/fix can be eligible for DYK, just as not every article is eligible for GA or FA. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree...I just posted some long-winded blathering below, without reading this, and I think i've pretty much just echoed this point. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Shubinator has a good suggestion. Basically the site has a lot of smallish articles that are mostly crud. Uncle Tom had been one paragraph of information plus a laundry list of BLP violations and OR, and it was actually quite tough to get it to DYK threshold because of the crud. A more flexible standard for DYK would encourage good editors to eschew the crud and rebuild with real material. If you compare the difference on that example[4] it basically amounts to starting from scratch anyway. Durova^Charge! 20:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I heavily agree with Durova's comment. It's a pain when not notable trivia or pop-culture references are counted with the prose when I'm trying to do a 5x expansion. I've had that happen to me before. Because of a large batch of trivia that was counted as the prose of the original article, I couldn't get an article to a 5x expansion, no matter how hard I tried. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

In that case, perhaps a clause of some sort excluding blatantly obvious unsourced non-notable WP:TRIVIA? Cirt (talk) 20:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

For two years editors had been trying to get rid of the BLP violations at Uncle Tom, and they kept getting reinstated and converted into WP:SYNTH violations. Read the talk page; that solution wouldn't work where it matters most. Durova^Charge! 20:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I was misunderstood, I meant excluding that sort of material from the prose count, of course we should strive to exclude it from the article itself anyways. Cirt (talk) 20:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That is one thing I would definitely support in a vote. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(out) @Awadewit: I think we can all agree that we should do our best to encourage people to improve articles. The real question is whether that is DYK's job, or another project's. Over the several months this general issue has been rehashed, I have not yet been convinced that GAN can't fill that hole; it's a project better-suited to awarding article improvements... and if we need to resort to trinket-awarding to get people to work in mainspace then, well, GA trinkets mean a lot more than DYK ones (because, let's face it, out of the three main content-oriented awards, DYK is pretty much the booby prize).(addendum: I do recognize that there are editors here and there who don't "believe in" the GA project. But that's their choice.)
@ the other comments about how some sorts of articles are notoriously difficult to get up to DYK standards...well, sorry, but that's going to be the case no matter how we change the rules. There will always be articles that, for whatever reason, really need improvement but are also a bear to shoehorn into the DYK mold. That just means you need to suck it up, do the work anyway, and take it to GAN or PR or something like that to get the extra attention you would otherwise have gotten from DYK—or, God forbid, work on the article just for the good feeling it gives you, and not worry about what awards you will get from it. People don't need to get some sort of award or official recognition for every thing they do on Wikipedia. And, to be honest, trying to satisfy everyone would result in us making the DYK rules so lax as to be meaningless. Based on the opinion a lot of Wikipedians have of this project, I would guess that if anything, DYKs need to start becoming harder to "win", rather than easier. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Very well said by Rjanag (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) "Suck it up" was a term I used to hear in the Navy, mostly from nineteen-year-old sailors who hadn't learned how to hold their liquor yet. Let's keep the discussion on a more cerebral level here. Durova^Charge! 20:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

@Rjanag. While I respect your opinion, it isn't always as simple as "Taking it to GAN" if we can't get a DYK for it. What about articles that aren't good enough for GAN? Sometimes there really isn't enough information out there for a GAN. To me a solution like that is only putting a bandage on a situation that I myself, I don't know about anyone else, am starting to notice in article I'm trying to improve more and more. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't do this stuff seriously, as in counting down until I get an award or something, I do this for fun. But it's a pain and a waste of time when I finish working on an article, and it turns out that it doesn't meet a 5x expansion, mostly due to not being able to make it so that trivia counts against the prose. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) If the article isn't good enough for GA and not new/expanded enough for DYK then you can, like I said, give yourself a pat on the back, recognize that you've done a good deed, and go have ice cream. There are millions of articles on WP that need work, it will only be a matter of days before you come across another one that will earn you a DYK or a GA. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget that it's never a waste of time to improve an article. Making a substantial contribution to an article benefits Wikipedia editors and readers alike, even if no specific "recognition" is received. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 20:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

In a harsh economic time like today, you think it's a good idea to waste money on ice cream? ;) CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a mid-way "award" of some sort for article improvement between DYK and GA, improving a C-class to B-class, something like that. Cirt (talk) 20:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• (ec) Yes, a mid-way "award" for the award collectors is a good idea. The problem of (Uncle Tom) seems to me to be a different problem than DYK. What is the purpose of "fixing" an article enough for DYK if it is only going to be instantly reduced to junk with unsourced non-notable WP:TRIVIA at the next opportunity? It seems like we are back to medal collecting in ways that will not materially benefit the encyclopedia. (Could the same article could be eligible multiple times for DYK, based on that standard?) —Mattisse (Talk) 20:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I always thought barnstars did that job, since that's what I do whenever I see an editor do a lot of expanding on a small article, but it seems I'm the only one who does that, as a lot of hard work by a lot of great editors goes un-noticed, and I doubt that will improve at somepoint. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• I saw above a few mentions about violations and the rest. I think that there can be exceptions made in egregious cases of problems (like OR). I know one exception was made here for me not too long ago. I would say a case by case basis would be best in such cases. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Uncle Tom did make it to DYK under the 5x standard. I'm not sure why you're objecting. The argument is that the BLP/SYNTH vio crud nearly made that impossible. Without the crud it was a one paragraph substub, which certainly would have been an easy DYK. Durova^Charge! 20:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, if it were up to me, the one thing that I think could at least really help is if a rule were made saying that not notable, unsourced, pop culture or trivia (Such as unsourced lyric explanations, Family Guy mentions and such,) were to NOT count against the 5x prose expansion. That would make the job a little easier, IMO. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Several of the BLP vios at Uncle Tom had been sourced as WP:SYNTH vios. So that wouldn't solve the problem at ethnic slurs, etc. where achieving a stable cleanup matters most. Remember: editors had tried and failed to remove the BLP problem at that page for two years until the DYK drive finally fixed it. Durova^Charge! 20:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

So just replace "DYK drive" in that sentence with "Barnstar drive" or "Article improvement drive". :P Cirt (talk) 20:48, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) All this talk is noble, but we have to keep in mind the central issue of practicality. DYK is a project that almost always has a backlog of over 100 entries, gets 30+ more noms daily, and has to update itself every 6 hours; the current set of objective and relatively automatic rules was set up so that reviewers could plow through nominations rapidly. If we were to create a blanket rule stating that any and all OR, BLP violations, and general junk would not be counted towards the original page length, we would basically necessitate an in-depth assessment (similar to an AfD) on every non-new article that came through here, and people would argue back and forth over what constituted OR, what didn't, yada yada yada. At the way DYK is now, it would be impossible to keep up. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, perhaps less plowing is a good idea. :) Perhaps more careful consideration of noms is a good idea (gasp, faint). Awadewit (talk) 20:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I have to agree, sometimes we all make mistakes when reviewing DYK? noms, myself included, because sometimes we plow through them. And to me, personlly, the DYK? backlog is NOTHING compared to the GAN backlog. I'm a frequent GA reviewer, and the DYK? backlog is a cakewalk compared to there, where there's over 280+ articles that still need to be reviewed. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 20:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec x2) This is why I suggested instead that expansion drives on non-substubs get a different multiplier. If a 12K article is 3K of useful stuff and 9K of crud, an exclusion rule would bring the threshold to 15K yet require more work from reviewers. No modification in current practice would require 60K--out of reach for most editors. A 3x rule would bring that to 36K: still ambitious but easier to check. A fair compromise? Durova^Charge! 20:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) this is an interesting thread and got me thinking..(also on the lack of balance in some larger articles). How about a significant 5x expansion to a section of an article? eg. the factual (non-holmes) section of Reichenbach Falls is a scant five sentences. If this were expanded fivefold, that could count as a DYK - properly submitted and reviewed? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a slippery slope. Remember, T:DYK says at the top: From Wikipedia's newest articles. Cirt (talk) 21:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it could say "From Wikipedia's newest content"? Awadewit (talk) 21:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Again, changes the whole meaning and spirit and intent of WP:DYK. Cirt (talk) 21:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

So? If it encourages people to improve content, I could care less that we are violating some founding principle. I'm no strict constructionist. :) Awadewit (talk) 21:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of other ways to encourage people to improve content on the project, but the primary purpose and intent of T:DYK is to highlight new articles on the main page. Cirt (talk) 21:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

But we redefine processes all of the time. FA used to recognize "brilliantly written" articles. Obviously, it has transformed into something much more sophisticated than that. If we want to change the process, we can. That is the wonderful think about a wiki - we are the editors - we can make it whatever we want. Awadewit (talk) 21:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Many might argue that FA standards are lower now and the articles less interesting, the standards more formulaic. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but in the case of FA the standards and methods of review have improved and made the criteria tighter over time, not changed the nature of what an FA is. Two different discussions. In one case, FA, the criteria was strengthened, in this case, DYK, the proposal is to change the nature of what DYK is - essentially to no longer have its focus be new articles. That would be akin to merging FA and FLs together - thereby changing the entire scope of what an FA is. Cirt (talk) 21:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The nature of what an FA did change - the FA criteria changed to include sourcing and research, fundamentally altering the nature of the beast. However, we are digressing a bit here. Awadewit (talk) 21:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

But many would agree that the scope of the articles is narrower now and the articles less interesting. They may be more "correct" but being more "academic" does not equate with reader interest. I see DYK going in that direction, unfortunately. It used to be for new, innovative articles, not articles that have been worked over and over. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Other examples would be many articles with plot summaries and completely devoid of reception, background, criticism etc Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(EC)I have to agree with Rjanag here, not every article improvement must be rewarded with a trinket. I was creating and improving articles here for almost 18 months before somebody pointed me in this project's direction. Indeed, even now, only about 1 in 4 of the articles I create or substantially expand even get nominated for DYK because I try to only nominate the ones with a right kind of quirky fact or unusual circumstance. Before DYK, my "reward" was turning red links to blue, watching undersized categories fill up, and the occasional barnstar for my efforts. If DYK didn't exist, I'd still be creating and expanding articles about topics that interest me—the DYK notifications, the medals, and whatnot are appreciated but they're not the reason I create content. And as for running out of articles to create or expand? That date is deep in the future, even for the very limited topic of US radio stations, even with a whole WikiProject "plowing" ahead on it. Maybe there does need to be a reward for moderate article expansion but it's not DYK. - Dravecky (talk) 21:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Agree. I have pretty much dropped out of reviewing DYKs because of these issues anyway—more editors wanting more awards for an ever expanding pool. Now I review only occasionally. Shows my age that I remember the "good old days" when DYK was a pleasure. The problem is that reviewers like me tend more and more to skip the 5x expansions because of the headaches involved and will certainly skip 12x expansions and related ilk, leaving more work to the dedicated few that plow through everything. This will make the work load at DYK increasingly impossible. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Addendum. I also did not know about DYK until after I had created and substantially improved many hundreds of articles, unrewarded by any trinket. I do not believe that most editors create and improve articles for a trinket reward. I certainly do not, and I do not think I am different from other editors. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Do you mean to suggest that the primary example raised--Uncle Tom--was disingenuous? That it wasn't exapanded or submitted to stabilize a page that had been plagued by persistent BLP violations for two years? Durova^Charge! 21:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that is a major misunderstanding of what I said. Please read it again. I was not addressing BLP violations or anything of the sort. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Right: the statement entirely ignored the possibility that the stated reasons might be accepted at face value. Durova^Charge! 21:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

So you disagree that an article that has trivia and other junk added immmediately might qualify for DYK multiple times, each time it is clean up? That is all I was asking. Are you not assuming good faith? —Mattisse (Talk) 21:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

We have a rule (M5) that prohibits articles from appearing at DYK multiple times. Shubinator (talk) 21:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That answers my question. Since Uncle Tom has already appeared as a DYK, there is no more discussion to be had regarding that article, is there? —Mattisse (Talk) 22:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It can't appear again, correct. The experience there can help to shape new rules though (like Ottava's poems). Shubinator (talk) 22:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I really respect everyone's opinions on this, but am I the only one who doesn't think that the work load will suffer as incredibly bad as some of the commentators are making out, here? I don't know about you, but I do this reviewing thing for fun. The bigger the backlog to me, the more fun I have, because that's more articles to take a look at. I love going to DYK?, because it's fun to review articles, learn things I never knew before, and it's a great way to unwind and relax. I use DYK? reviewing as a great way to relax after a rough day in classes. To me, if you stop having fun doing something, why do it? If a user only wants to review non 5x expansions, that's no skin off of my back. That's another DYK? nom that I can take a look at. :) And plus, trust me, no matter how big the DYK? backlog ever gets, it will never reach the gigantic proportions that the GAN backlog is, right now. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 21:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I was speaking for myself. There may be many others like you, who will welcome the increased work load. Don't forget though, there are those who complain that the articles and the sourcing is not checked strictly enough and copyvio ruled out with the article load as it is. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(@ CarpetCrawler) Those are all good points...but also keep in mind that GAN is not time-sensitive like DYK is. At DYK, there have to be enough articles reviewed to make an update every 6 hours (that hasn't been a major problem in several months, I think, but other times it has been), and once articles are nominated they have to get dealt with fast enough that they still look like "new" articles. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

This is rather late, but I want to draw attention to something Awadewit (talk · contribs) said above at 21:08, 10 May 2009. Currently, the MP says "from Wikipedia's newest articles"; why not "from Wikipedia's newest content"? At the least, it would be more accurate, as it would encompass the current format of accepting both new articles and 5x expansions. At the most, it could be a harbinger of change to this project to further encourage content expansions.
Also, I'd like to address something that annoyed me while reading the discussion above (hopefully not opening a can of worms here). A few editors above are arguing that DYK should not change just for 'award collecting'. My slightly blunt reply is "who cares"See my post after Ottava's @ 3:18? If people need an award to add/improve content on this encyclopedia, why not give it to them? I don't see what is so bad; having a red link turn blue because someone wants an award and recognition is much better than someone not editing/not article-building. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree Ed. Awadewit (talk) 02:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I care, actually. Call me an elitest, but I like a system in which people are here for the encyclopedia first and not themselves. The people here for themselves tend to be the ones with the most problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Considering we can't really know someone's motivation anyway, we shouldn't try to make this distinction. Awadewit (talk) 03:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I still care regardless of knowledge. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 03:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

That part was phrased poorly, because obviously people care. :P What I meant was why should that factor in the decision of whether DYK should be altered (or why it shouldn't). —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ed sums everything up MUCH better than I ever could! CarpetCrawler^{message me} 03:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I also agree. Though I expressed similar thoughts in my recent thread that the "Future of DYK is with expansions/rewrites". The purpose and spirit of DYK is to encourage new content creation. Only in its very early infancy was it narrowly focused on just new articles. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

"From Wikipedia's newest articles" is not correct; makes sense to switch to "From Wikipedia's newest content". Shubinator (talk) 03:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "newest articles" is a good summary of what we do now. As M3 puts it, "80% new is enough to be considered 'new'". Art LaPella (talk) 06:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd be opposed to changing it to "newest content". "New content" can mean practically anything. I'm adding "new content" all the time that isn't eligible for any sort of award. "Newest articles" is specific, and I think, more interesting to the casual reader. And to me, part of the utility of DYK is that it allows people who are not currently involved with the encyclopedia to say to themselves "Hey, that doesn't look so daunting. I could write an article as good as that!".

As to the other suggestions in this thread - I guess if there was a consensus to exclude "trivia" sections from the x5 expansion count we could try that - it's not as if we get many submissions with such sections IMO. We also already have a precedent for discounting WP:ESSAYs. So I guess it might be possible to try tweaking the rules a tad to make them a little more flexible. The bottom line however, as Rjanag has pointed out, is that nothing be done which would add substantially to the burden of DYK reviewers, because there is more than enough work in reviewing submissions already. Gatoclass (talk) 06:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

For the record I personally would be all for more DYK's to review. :) But I can see why other people would dislike that. To me, a good compromise would be to exclude the trivia sections from a 5x expansion prose count, which I personally wanted more than anything else. But it's not my decision, really. CarpetCrawler^{message me} 06:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) The constant backlog alone proves the system is far from starved for content. If we ever start to get low, even a tiny awareness campaign could flood DYK under an avalanche of new hook nominations since only a small fraction of the editors on Wikipedia know anything about the DYK nomination process. I do enjoy the rewards that come with DYK participation but that's not why most editors (myself included) create content so I don't see any pressing need to change DYK solely to suit a few folks who wish it were easier to collect more rewards at the sacrifice of DYK's core mission. (Expanded sections? Saints preserve us.) - Dravecky (talk) 06:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I'd be opposed to changing it from "new articles", essentially per Gatoclass (talk · contribs), Art LaPella (talk · contribs), and my comments, above. Cirt (talk) 11:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Premature

Isn't this discussion a bit premature? The last I checked, DYK was still incredibly backlogged. From my own self-nommed articles, Valentine Baker (pilot) was created on April 22 and didn't show up in DYK until May 4, twelve days later, instead of what's supposed to be no more than five. howcheng {chat} 06:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

We really aren't backlogged, the number of submissions has been very stable in recent months, and in fact I think the number has dropped off a tad since late last year.

The reason it takes longer for your submissions to get to the mainpage now is because of the queue, which essentially adds a day and a half to every nom. But it's actually a good thing that we usually have 175+ articles to choose from on the suggestions page, because it makes selection of balanced updates a lot easier. Previously, we would sometimes get down to just a handful of hooks that made it practically impossible to put together a good update. That rarely seems to occur anymore. Gatoclass (talk) 07:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

If the DYKbot could be dependably fixed and run more smoothly, this would cut down on time between submission to T:DYK. Cirt (talk) 11:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

An idea

I understand the concerns about burdening reviewers. I used to be much more active with reviewing till I realized it so drastically cut down on my article writing. I remember from the previous threads comments regarding how WP:IAR already allows some of these drastic rewrites in but there was concerns that a blanket condoning would open the flood gates. I think a fair idea would be to run a beta test of sort. How about we create a special sub-section (like we do with themed holidays, etc) for Substantial Rewrites where editors who have had to essentially re-write a new article because of OR, POV, Copy-vios, BLP issues, etc can submit their articles for consideration. These are articles that would not qualify for 5x expansion if this bad content is originally counted but would qualify as 5x expansion based on the merit of the new content alone. Editors can make their case for how much new content was created but understand that these articles may get "pushed to the bottom" of the waiting list as reviewers may opt to check the ones that are easier to review. I think this beta test would accomplish a couple things 1.) It would gauge the amount of interest in submitting these substantial rewrites 2.) It would provide an accurate idea of how much difficulty and extra burden reviewing these articles truly would be and 3.) It may give us an idea of what improvement in article quality or benefit that DYK may receive in allowing these substantial rewrites to be used. Again, I don't think this is contrary at all to the spirit or purpose of DYK since the focus is still squarely on new content creation. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 06:45, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

As this strays farther away from the purpose of T:DYK, new articles, it might be a good idea for a proposal of a new subsection on the Main Page, instead of pushing it out through T:TDYK. Cirt (talk) 11:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Only in its very early infancy was the purpose of DYK narrowly focused on just new articles. As early as May 2006, the encouragement of expansion and the focus of new content creation was taking shape and has a very long established history here. In contrast, some of the new rules of referencing (must be at the very end of the sentence-not paragraph, etc) are much more recent and drastic of a change from DYK original mission. So once again, this does not stray DYK away from its purpose--not even one inch. Nor does it require it a special section of the main page since it still squarely in DYK terrain. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:06, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Gatoclass makes a good point above about this issue...regardless of what we believe DYK should be, we need to keep main page readers in mind and make sure DYK is something understandable and accessible to them. "New content" is more or less a Wikipedia buzzword, and to an uninitiated reader (ie, most people who look at the main page, and are probably not regular Wikipedia editors) it is very vague. "New articles" makes a lot more sense. Along the same lines, if we made a main page section for "articles that were once totally POV/OR and have since been completely rewritten," that's really a description that is only useful for WP regulars, not readers. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

You're 100% right. We do need to keep the readers in mind. Which is why it is fruitful for us to consider ways to put better quality articles on the main page for them read. Was that not a driving motivation behind the stricter referencing and minimum character requirements? To encourage and promote better quality articles on the main page. The fights and the headaches on this talk page and others certainly wasn't for the grins and amusement of us regulars-but rather that we did that for the readers and for the general health and success of DYK in promoting better referenced and developed articles. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW: Fresh insight is always helpful so I put a neutral notice at the Village Pump Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#DYK-New_Articles_or_New_Content? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't we already know how such a beta test would turn out? If we can't keep up with approvals the way it is, then what would go undone if we further complicated the process? If we aren't backlogged, then why can't we approve or disapprove nominations on the same day they are nominated? That would avoid the wait described at A2, and that's when I do my proofreading. If we can ever catch up with approvals, then it would make more sense to discuss complicating the procedure further. Art LaPella (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

DYKbot

I've gotten a request to consider having a different person run this, I was under the assumption that it was not needed or desired anymore (I've gotten several off wiki comments to that effect). If the bot is still desired I can enable it and test it and get it working after friday. To do so I will need to create "test" pages as testing it live just does not work. Folks invariably miss the message and manually update anyway.

So two questions. 1) are all the bot variables correctly set still (eg which queue for it to run etc?) 2) Do we still want the bot? —— nixeagle^{email me} 01:05, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

You've got to be kidding me! Some people enjoy manually updating?! We need this bot really bad, and I left a message on nixeagle's talk page asking if someone else can do the task since it's been 3 months of manual updates. Royalbroil 01:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

We definitely still want the bot. I'm not sure where things are right now; I know Shubinator has been doing a lot of work on a different DYK bot (for general housekeeping stuff) but I'm not sure if he has any plans to run DYKadminbot. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd done some code for DYKadminbot, but Ameliorate! had suggested that he'd work on a new one, so I switched to the housekeeping bot. Still have the code though. Shubinator (talk) 02:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I *am* nixeagle :P And yes, I've had several users make comments that they liked the bot down as it meant that more attention was paid to what was actually put on the page. That and the fact that my attempts to fix it kept getting delayed I just put it off until after the school year. :P —— nixeagle^{email me} 01:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

They liked having the bot down? Well, they weren't the ones scraping themselves awake at 3am to do manual updates or jumping up and down to do the credits. The only "benefit" to having the bot down is that some folks got to see their hook on the main page for longer than six hours since updates aren't as regular. Brother, that's a benefit we can live without. First person to get a working DKYadminbot back online earns my eternal gratitude and, if we ever meet, several adult beverages of their choice. - Dravecky (talk) 06:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok ok, if you guys check that the bot variables (most importantly which queue to update) is up to date, I'll enable it tonight for you guys! —— nixeagle^{email me} 01:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've enabled the bot. I'll double check that the queue is set correctly, but it would be advisable that someone here double check as well. —— nixeagle^{email me} 01:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The queues aren't set correctly. They need to be tagged with {{DYKbotdo}} for the bot to update. Can an admin run in and add the tag? Shubinator (talk) 02:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

You mean the normal queues, or are there test queues somewhere? and should all of them be tagged, or just the next one? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if Nixeagle has a test set, but if he doesn't the normal ones should be tagged. I guess only do the next one, and if the bot runs as planned, we can go through the rest. Shubinator (talk) 02:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

These people that like the extra attention to DYK, are these the same people that are spending the time to do the update the template, or are these people speaking for others on their own behalf? Hearing that other people have delayed this critical bot for 3 months is a very disturbing development. I could have made up many high quality articles in the time that I wasted updating the main page/crediting. Royalbroil 03:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I do seem to recall some comments along those lines at this talk page a while back. So maybe nixeagle read those and got a mistaken impression. But certainly, DYK regulars want the bot back! Not only because of the time saved, but also because manual updates have proven to be much less reliable in the regularity with which they get posted. Sometimes there is just no-one around to get the update done at the right time. Gatoclass (talk) 06:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

So, does the bot think it's running? That's two consecutive manual updates at nearly the seven-hour mark when the bot should have kicked in at six on the nose. Any thoughts, updates, or comments? I'd love to have the bot working again. - Dravecky (talk) 11:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Is the bot set to the right time cycle? Maybe it's still on 8 hours or something from an earlier edit. I'd check it myself but it's so long since the bot was running, I've forgotten the name of the page. Gatoclass (talk) 12:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Turns out that User:DYKadminBot/time was still set to an 8 hour cycle. I've adjusted it, hopefully we will soon see the bot on the job again! Gatoclass (talk) 12:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty, fixed the crontab entry, hopefully the thing does the run properly next time 'round. Please give the bot up to 10 minutes past the "correct" time to complete the run. —— nixeagle^{email me} 01:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It's still not working. Last update was 90 minutes overdue when I posted it. Gatoclass (talk) 08:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I know, you guys moved the dyk update time up so much that it bypassed a hardcoded time limit in the bot. I've set the hardcoded limit to 5 hours now. So long as you guys don't start doing DYKs every 4 hours we should be fine... plus I'm having an admin trigger it on purpose this time to see what happens. —— nixeagle^{email me} 12:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Bill_of_Federalism

Hi,

A new user has created this interesting article, and suggested it as a 'Did you know?'.

As a first article, it is very good, and the user has worked hard to get it up to Wikipedia standards as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, they did not understand the full complexity of the DYK 'rules', and nominated it after 6 days.

Template_talk:Did_you_know#Bill_of_Federalism

As this is a new user, I ask that it still be considered - no Wikipedia rules are set in stone, and I personally feel that this is a good example of where some discretion could be used.

Best regards,  Chzz  ►  11:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Current Queue 6 - Possible Problem

I think this is the right place to post this, I'm a bit confused by all this Template:Talk redirect stuff. Anyway, I was nosing around and the current queue 6 has two (pictured) brackets but only one picture! I'm sure someone would pick this up, but better safe than sorry! Bigger digger (talk) 14:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for the heads up. Gatoclass (talk) 14:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that! (Mea culpa.) --Orlady (talk) 15:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem, always nice to help! Bigger digger (talk) 15:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Query: Trademark image?

The eye-catching image for the Mibbit hook (here) is a trademark, currently at Commons. Is this image main-page eligible? --Orlady (talk) 15:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Trademarks are different than copyrights. I'm not sure, but I think it's fine. Wikipedia:Restricted_materials#Trademarks says that trademarks cannot be used by anyone, including Wikipedia, for the purpose of promoting or advertising similar products. Wikipedia:Logos has a similar gist. We're not pretending to sell/promote anything under the trademark. Shubinator (talk) 15:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Calling all bacon afficianados and editors who enjoy silliness

The Bacon Challenge 2009 is open to all interested parties. See: User:ChildofMidnight/Baconchallenge2009. Questions, comments, suggestions etc., are welcome on the associated talk page. See you in two weeks!!! ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Bot again

Ok, due to the bot not triggering in time for the update (I have the logs showing this). (its running but its not seeing that it needs to update). I have a feeling either someone jumped the gun, or the bot is not seeing the correct times somewhere.

Needless to say, I've given an admin I trust (PeterSymonds) a link to the bot and he will be triggering it for the next update. Hopefully it will run, if not I'll have some valuable information on why its not running properly. Please for my sake... do not manually update until its 10 minutes *past* the appointed time! I can't stress this part enough. —— nixeagle^{email me} 12:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed; I will be triggering the bot at 13:26. PeterSymonds (talk) 12:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I debugged it, its running! Hopefully we can let things go back to normal.. Please let me know of any bugs you see. DYKadminBot (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The DYKbot debugged itself! Thanks DYKbot, I didn't know you had it in you :p Gatoclass (talk) 13:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

... oops! I forgot to log back out. (I was testing that the password was correct). Needless to say, the bot should be doing updates all by itself now. —— nixeagle^{email me} 13:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I figured it was you ... just seemed funny to see a comment from the bot :)

On a more serious note - the bot still hasn't done the credits yet. Is it going to do that, or is that another bug that hasn't been fixed yet? Gatoclass (talk) 13:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. On the end of the run the bot came up with an undefined function, which I fixed. I can't run it again until the next update else the stuff thats up now won't get the time on the main page. So I guess the verdict is still out on this one. Did the bot at any time ever do the credits? (Also please tell me exactly what you mean by credits, I see the bot has posted messages to the users that did the DYKs). —— nixeagle^{email me} 13:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay it sounds like it's done the credits, but it hasn't reset the queue page, archived the previous set of hooks, or updated the queue count. So unless it's done them while I've been posting this, there are still some things it isn't doing. Gatoclass (talk) 14:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Although now that I think of it, I vaguely recall Ameliorate saying something about a separate bot to do some functions - but I can't really remember. You may have to check the code to see what it actually does, or have a word to Ameliorate about it. Gatoclass (talk) 14:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

How lovely to see DYKadminBot's ID in the logs again. :-) Although it didn't reset the queue page, archive the old hooks, or update the queue count, at least it did reset the clock, which seems like it's a function related to those others. --Orlady (talk) 14:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the other things it didn't do, it also didn't tag the article pages as it's supposed to do, like this. So there is still some functionality missing here. Gatoclass (talk) 14:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, manually do the things it missed this time. Watch the next run and let me know what it missed that time, its likely the bot was not finished when it aborted due to an undefined function (which I think is fixed...). Additionally please note that I don't think the bot ever did article tagging, perhaps someone can check the bot's history and see if it ever did that. —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It did do tagging in the past; see, for example, this. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] I'm pretty sure it did do the article tagging - either that or another bot run by ameliorate, but it would seem odd to write a separate one just for tagging articles.

One of the problems it *did* have previously is that if it found more than one article by the same user in an update it would credit them for the same article - in fact it did that in this very update, crediting Cbl for the same article 3 times. Ameliorate worked out a kludge whereby you could manually add whitespace to the user name to get the bot to "see" the name as a different one each time, but if you could fix the bot so it didn't need the whitespace anymore, that would be great.

Sometimes when the bot screws up like that, it will get confused and start screwing up other things as I recall, so maybe it would have tagged the articles if not for that. Just a wild guess... Gatoclass (talk) 14:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I have manually completed this update now, BTW. Gatoclass (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, wait for the next update, and post here for what the bot does not do and I'll look into why its not doing it. As I said above the prior run aborted early. —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks nixeagle, will do :) Gatoclass (talk) 14:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I have left a note at the top of queue #5 to remind people not to manually post the next update. Gatoclass (talk) 14:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The bot might need to be tweaked for 6 queues. Right now it will probably go back to queue 1 after queue 5. We've also changed the archiving slightly (it's actually easier now from an automated view), so that code should be modified as well. Shubinator (talk) 14:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Already changed from 5 to 6... let me know if it skips 6 anyway. As far as the archive changes, if someone describes to me what it was originally and how it has changed, I can fix that. —— nixeagle^{email me} 15:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Before and after. The change is in the image. Before (pictured) linked to the image, now the archives include the image as an image. It's easier now because the bot can simply dump everything between <!--Hooks--> and <!--HooksEnd-->; before it had to find the image, find the (pictured), and form the link. Shubinator (talk) 15:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I won't be changing anything for this run, but we can look at changing things for future runs. (I want to see what works and what does not work) —— nixeagle^{email me} 19:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Update done by the bot, whatever it did not do last time it did not do this time due to another function not being defined. I've fixed that. Lets hope that 3 times is the charm :). We should also note that when wiki is lagged out, the bot tends to not finish its edits... something that more modern bots don't have issues with. Depending on how many more issues I run into over the next couple days, I may do a complete rewrite over the weekend. —— nixeagle^{email me} 20:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Bot just ran a moment ago. It says that it did a complete run, so please let me know anything it did not do and I'll investigate why its not doing it. I likely won't have any further improvments/changes until thursday afternoon EST, I have two finals tomorrow and one thursday morning. —— nixeagle^{email me} 02:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all of the help, and good luck with your finals! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it forgot to archive, but that's relatively minor. Thank you for getting the bot back up! Shubinator (talk) 03:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Uh-oh...

Looks like the bot did one of its previous occasional tricks of posting two updates within minutes of one another. This is something else that will need to be fixed. Gatoclass (talk) 04:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added the update that was only on the front page for five minutes back to the queue. Gatoclass (talk) 05:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

don't - that was intentional on my part: See the revision done by the bot 6 hours before:

• 20:47, 12 May 2009 DYKadminBot (talk | contribs | block) (3,448 bytes) (Adminbot automatically updating DYK template with hooks copied from queue 5) (undo)

and now:

• 02:38, 13 May 2009 DYKadminBot (talk | contribs | block) (3,448 bytes) (Adminbot automatically updating DYK template with hooks copied from queue 5) (undo)

In short it posted the same update twice, which I caught and fixed and simply manually told the bot to re-update with queue 6. Please double check and make sure you don't give the queue 5 hooks double air time. —— nixeagle^{email me} 12:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you figure that, because they are definitely two different updates on my PC! Here's the first one, and here's the second. You can see from the second link that they were different updates. Gatoclass (talk) 14:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh wait, I see what you mean. I will remove the other one from the queue then, thanks for letting me know. Gatoclass (talk) 14:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like someone else removed it already. Gatoclass (talk) 14:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Queue #4 problem

I notice that the image in Queue #4 is also in the recent additions. I don't have time to review the situation, so would someone please assess what happened? I'm guessing that the bot messed something up. Royalbroil 12:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, it posted one Q's contents (including the Holland Rd church pic) at 03:38 then overwrote the template with the next Q's contents at 03:43. Gatoclass provided a diff above. The affected hooks have been moved back to Q4, but evidently haven't been taken out of the archive – I'll do that. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC) See below. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear

See here and here. This relates to the set of hooks starting with Holland Road Baptist Church. What has actually happened is that the bot added the hooks to the Main Page at 21:47 yesterday (diff); tried to paste the same hooks again at 03:38 today (diff); and correctly posted the next set of hooks from the next Q at 03:43 today (diff) – the set starting with the Persian Embassy. The upshot is:

• Holland Road et al have had their full airing on the Main Page
• I need to re-add them to the archive, having just been fooled by the apparent glitch and removed them
• An admin will need to remove the hooks currently in Q4, otherwise they'll get a double run

Thanks to Royalbroil for spotting this and reporting above. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Correct, I noticed that queue 5 got updated with queue 5 and realized that the bot forgot to edit User:DYKadminBot/count. So what I did was revert the bot's double credits (posts to user talk pages) and the bot's update to the "last updated time". Once this was done I manually re-ran the bot. That is what resulted in the quick runs after the queue 5 mistake. —— nixeagle^{email me} 12:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Queue 4 blanked. PeterSymonds (talk) 13:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This is confusing indeed. Should the current contents of Queue 5 be moved up into the now-empty Queue 4 slot? --Orlady (talk) 13:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

No, problem is resolved: yesterday's queue 5 on the main page is not the same as Template:Did_you_know/Queue/5. The problem is resolved. —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Bot posting duplicate credits?

I noticed this when looking at Gatoclass's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Gatoclass&oldid=289673449 See the very bottom of the page. The bot posted 4 credits. Is this intentional? Is this a problem with how the hook was formed? Has this happened in the past? Please give me a bit of insight so I can better debug this :) —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Please discuss in above section. —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The bot is not archiving the old hooks

The bot is not archiving the old hooks when they come off the main page. I hope this step can be added to the 'bot's program, and in the interim admins need to watch and do it manually. (I just now added two "missed" sets to the archive.) --Orlady (talk) 14:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that's good to know. I'll watch the batches and recent additions page. Jamie^☆S93 17:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The archives aren't protected, so regular users can be on the lookout too. Shubinator (talk) 17:26, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a known issue, and I'll work on it over the next week, but I do need to do some more significent rewriting then I have been doing. Right now I've been taking a mostly hands off approach, only editing those lines that I have to edit to make it function as its not my code. As I get a bit more familier with what its doing I'll look into this one :). Plus you guys changed the archive format from what it used to be. —— nixeagle^{email me} 05:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed additional DYK rules

I would like to propose that the following two requirements be added

1. Articles must belong to at least one category.(if possible)
2. Reworded: - Articles should list at least one relevant wikiproject/task force on their talk page.(if possible)

I believe that by forcing articles to be part of a category and wikiproject, this will help foster interest in them beyond DYK and will help them expand faster.Smallman12q (talk) 12:51, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the wording. While we can force people to add articles to WikiProjects if it's relevant to one, it's not clear from this wording. The problem is that requiring WikiProjects to be added is that it will put off new people who have never done a DYK before. Veterans should be required.

Adding categories is already mandatory. If you find one that doesn't have one, you should be adding a cleanup tag to it ({{uncategorized}}). Cleanup issues prevents an article from appearing on the main page. Royalbroil 13:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be explicitly added to the rules. I've seen articles that are uncatogrized get approved.Smallman12q (talk) 14:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the wikiproject idea. WikiProjects are not mandatory. Instead, they are volunteer groups. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Besides categories, related wikiprojects help foster interest in the article.Smallman12q (talk) 14:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with all of the above, these rules are not necessary. The categorization rule is already entailed in the fact that articles need to have cleanup tags; I have always opposed uncategorized articles even though we didn't have a rule against them, same with orphaned articles. As for talk banners, I find that a lot of WikiProjects are inactive and useless anyway (although I still put the banners up as a habit), and some people actually prefer having a red Discussion tab when there's nothing on the talkpage. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Rjanag's reasoning as to why these rules are unnecessary. Awadewit (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with all the above too. Many Wikiproject banners are useless. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

If DYK articles should have categories, would reviewers find it useful if DYKcheck checked for categories (or lack thereof)? Shubinator (talk) 15:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I would presume so. DYKcheck should also check for cleanup tags.Smallman12q (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

It does check for cleanup tags. Shubinator (talk) 16:17, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Current DYK item query

The source that has been used and verified for British Comedy Guide - currently on the main page - is the subject's own website. As there is no proof of notability, I consider this to be a pretty poor candidate to be featured on the front page. A quick Google search comes up with the British Comedy Awards, which are not the same thing. I think this should probably be removed until it can be proven to be a notable article. Howie ☎ 02:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your concern, and have removed it. Looking at the article, all but one of the references are from the site itself, and the other is from what appears to be an almost identical site (and actually, it's nothing but a user-created profile of some guy, not really a "reference"). At least one of the references doesn't even point to a real page, just to British Comedy Guide's index page, which is just lazy work. To be honest, I'm not sure this would pass an AfD right now. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

DYKadminbot update time

Quick note, During the testing I've cheated a bit and moved the time up 15 minutes. This is intentional, and I plan on leaving it like this through Friday or Saturday at which time I will bump it up 10 minutes. I have done this so that folks can get used to the bot doing the updates again and so that I have a bit of leeway in debugging it before someone does a manual update. —— nixeagle^{email me} 13:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Gatoclass (talk) 14:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, while you're at it, here's a couple of other little bugs you might like to look into. Firstly, the bot sees multi-articles by the same user in the same update as the same article, as it did just now here. That should have been credits for four different articles. Ameliorate had a kludge workaround whereby you can add whitespace to the user name to fool the bot into thinking it's looking at different users, but I think there must be a better solution.

For now use the kludge. It should be an easy problem to fix once I get time (I'm headed out the door soonish). —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've noticed that oddly enough, it still gets the credits on the article pages right, it's only the user credits it duplicates. Gatoclass (talk) 14:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Kludge is no longer needed, I've changed an odd foreach loop with regexes inside it to a for loop. Basically what it was doing was searching for the author's name and grabbing the title from that... and if the author was the same for more then one DYK... it would only find the first DYK. Regardless its fixed and done right now :). —— nixeagle^{email me} 19:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, the bot gets very confused when it finds a hook with parenthesis - it seems to think they are some sort of code, and as I recall, fails to credits the users and/or articles for said hooks. Gatoclass (talk) 14:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Its having problems encoding those for submission to the api. I think its either not encoding them at all or its double encoding it. Both ways result in no edits. I'll look into it tomorrow likely. —— nixeagle^{email me} 14:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it failed to credit Praise of the Two Lands (ship) and Bonus (basketball) on their talk pages. Ntsimp (talk) 13:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I have added the missing credits. Thanks. --Orlady (talk) 14:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, the bot missed the credit for KSKE (AM). I'd do the credit myself but it's one of my articles so if somebody else could tag the talk page, I'd be much appreciative. - Dravecky (talk) 06:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. Shubinator (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I am working on fixing this one right now... the problem is I can't figure out what part of api.php is rejecting the stuff the bot is sending. Once I isolate the issue we should be fine though :). I'll update you all with status updates as I work on this. —— nixeagle^{email me} 06:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this one is fixed, see the bot's edits to Mount_Scott_(Oregon), such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mount_Scott_(Oregon)&diff=290464444&oldid=290464362

Regardless I did the testing outside of the actual "bot", so... let me know if things abort too soon next run, that would indicate the bot error'd out :). —— nixeagle^{email me} 07:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The bot aborted after resetting the time on the last run. I've done the credits, but an admin needs to clear queue 6. Shubinator (talk) 12:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Oops, sorry about that, looking at my changes... I left some test code in :(. I removed those now... so again let me know if it stops before it should. —— nixeagle^{email me} 15:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, it just did a full update, and credited pages with parentheses. Thanks! Shubinator (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Probably not the best place

I know this probably isnt the best place to put this, and I doubt anything will change, but I still want to vent about it.
My hook on the razorfish is going up at 3a.m. my time! WTF?
Ok, thanks for listening. Just had to vent my frustration. I know this wont change anything, and I dont hold it against any of you.Drew Smith What I've done 23:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

There are about 8 hooks about every 6 hours, day and night. We don't yet have a system for giving people a preferred time of day. Art LaPella (talk) 02:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

That's happened to me many times. I think it's a good experience to wake up and find your hook on the main page! Royalbroil 02:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I know theres not a system for it. It still sucks. And to Royalboil, I dont wake up until noon...Drew Smith What I've done 03:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

We've all had hooks run "overnight" and while you may not have been able to personally enjoy the time it spent on the front page, we have to be hopeful that hundreds or thousands of people will see it, click the link, and read your work. - Dravecky (talk) 06:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with Dravecky. My last DYK, ARA Rivadavia, ran from about 3-9 a.m. CST, I believe. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:11, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Once I shake the bugs out of the bot and getting it to do what its supposed to do, I'll look into how to have the bot do scheduled runs so we can have specific timeslots rather then just queue 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. My thinking on how to do this follows like this. As we will have 4 different time slots (each 6 hours long)... you guys will set the intervals and we will have a total of 8 queues: 1 and 5 will be for say 0:00 to 6:00 UTC; 2,6 for 6:00 to 12:00 UTC; 3,7 for 12:00 to 18:00 UTC; and 4,8 for 18:00 to 0:00 UTC. Thoughts?

The main issues and probably why the bot does not already do this now is the bot is prone to not completing all of its required edits, and sometimes it can take the bot several "attempts" before it can update the dyk... once I fix the code to have it act a bit more reasonable and... actually you know, re-try edits ;) things will be in much better shape! :) —— nixeagle^{email me} 05:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Did you know...that the question "Did you know...?" is not aimed at the authors of the articles (they do know), so scheduling articles which they edited to appear on the front page when they are awake serves no purpose? Yomangani^talk 12:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. While it is nice to see your hook on the main page, it shouldn't be the sole motivating factor to work on articles. ∗ \ / (⁂) 12:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I hope you two are not talking to me directly, (I am not the same user as the user that posted the complaint that started this section). While I agree that having a predictable DYK time schedule solely for the purpose of allowing DYK nominators able to see the DYK on the main page is not useful, there are other valid reasons for a timeschedule. For one, it would allow admins placing the hooks to put relevant hooks for various geographic areas. Regardless I don't care too much either way if this is implemented or not, just that I am offering to do the work (and I am in a position to do the work as I run the bot). Cheers :) —— nixeagle^{email me} 18:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't directing that comment at you, more a general statement. ∗ \ / (⁂) 21:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think timeslot scheduling is necessary or particularly desirable given that it will likely lead to more requests/complaints from people seeking "prime time" slots for their hooks. Queues should generally be assembled for interest and balance, not the personal convenience of the hook writer. - Dravecky (talk) 18:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

If we could reliably predict the time when a hook would be displayed, I think it would make sense to avoid displaying a hook of purely provincial interest (for example, hooks about American college football) in a time slot when almost everyone who might possibly be interested in the hook is asleep. That does not apply, however, to the hook about the razorfish, which looks to me like a hook with universal appeal. --Orlady (talk) 19:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Orlady, exactly. Regardless I'll just let it be known that I can make the bot do this without too much work, its up to you guys if you want the bot to do it :). There are of course other concerns other then "is it possible", I assure you guys if you want it done... its technically possible. —— nixeagle^{email me} 19:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Per Dravecky, while the offer is certainly appreciated, I really don't think this would be a helpful addition. It's already difficult enough trying to put together balanced updates without having to juggle concerns about optimum timezones into the bargain.

We do occasionally get requests for moving a hook to a more suitable timezone, and we do sometimes accede to such requests, but I see no advantage in trying to institutionalize the practice. Gatoclass (talk) 07:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

DYKHousekeepingBot

DYKHousekeepingBot is ready to roll pending a green light from the BRfA. I started programming it to tag DYK articles that haven't yet been tagged. It's now become much more. The bot will tag DYK files and create new archives based on month and year of appearance. Page view statistics will be collected from stats.grok.se and will be used to create WP:DYKSTATS tables for as far back as the statistics page has data. The dyktalk tags will have the date of appearance, as usual, plus the hook, and the page views if available. The archives will be formatted like the current archives, with the image shown to the right. Before February 2005 there won't be time headers since the updates were rolling. Any questions/comments? Shubinator (talk) 01:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow...impressive work. This will be very handy. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

So does DYKadminBot need to do archives anymore? (Do note that I did fix DYKadminBot so it does do the hooks correctly on talk pages). —— nixeagle^{email me} 15:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

For now, DYKadminBot should do the every-update stuff, which includes archives. WP:Recent additions is just that, recent additions; if after the one-time run, I run the bot periodically, the additions won't be "recent" any more. Shubinator (talk) 15:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so we still need DYKadminBot to archive properly? —— nixeagle^{email me} 18:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think we do, as DYKHB will (probably) be a one-time run. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 19:31, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's the plan. By the way, I'm almost done with the bot's trial runs. If you see anything odd, let me know. (I've fixed the redirect bug, and the bug that showed up on Big Nose George.) Shubinator (talk) 19:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The bot trial produced the complete March 2005 archive and an incomplete April 2009 stats table. The archive is in exactly the same format that we have know, and the stats table is very similar to ones at WP:DYKSTATS. Let me know if you want something changed. Shubinator (talk) 00:43, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, they were short updates back then! The output looks great, looks like your bot knows what it's doing ;)

I'm just wondering now if perhaps we should have named rather than numbered archives? Maybe archives with names like 4-05, 5-05 etc. Gatoclass (talk) 07:43, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking Wikipedia:Recent Additions/YEAR/MONTH, so the above would be Wikipedia:Recent Additions/2005/March. When the archives are all built we can tweak {{dyktalk}} and {{ArticleHistory}} to build the link to the archive from the date of appearance. Shubinator (talk) 12:54, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Will articles that appeared at month boundaries be confused? I guess you'd just have to decide whether to archive them based on the time they were first put on T:DYK, or the time they were taken off it. (Both of which are often, especially in recent months, different from the time the article talkpage was tagged.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Hadn't thought about that. The bot archives when the set is taken off, so a set that appears at the end of March and is taken off at the start of April would appear in the April archives. The bot's {{dyktalk}} tags will have the same date, so hopefully it's not too much of an issue. Shubinator (talk) 14:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Locoweed in Q6

Here is an image for the locoweed hook, maybe more interesting than the talking heads? --Una Smith (talk) 15:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Palestinian Land Law

Could an experienced DYK reviewer who has not already become involved in the discussion of the May 7 hook for Palestinian Land Law please take a look at the discussion on the suggestions page and take it to conclusion? --Orlady (talk) 15:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I looked at this a day or two ago and my impression is that the article itself appears to have adequate sourcing and whatnot, so the only issues are choosing an appropriate hook and deciding what the article should be called. The naming thing is something I will stay out of because I don't know much about this reason; as for the hook, my vote would be for Dravecky's proposal (originally ALT4) that mentions the "holdover" thing and doesn't mention the death penalty. It may be less punchy and eye-catching, but it's probably also less potentially inflammatory and less likely to attract vandalism and POV-pushing, which will be important with a sensitive article like this. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My ALT4 proposal does have one flaw, uncovered after I wrote it, in that the law itself (according to the Boston Globe) only prohibits the sale of land to Jews and any refusal to sell to Christians is due to personal misinterpretation of the law to mean all non-Muslims. This is covered in the discussion and I only mention it here so a well-meaning editor doesn't jump in and grab by ALT4 as it stands without that specific bit of editing first. - Dravecky (talk) 17:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The fact that violators are punishable by the death penalty has been widely reported by sources ranging from the Jerusalem Post to Al Jazeera. The idea that the law is a holdover from a Jordanian law is, on the other hand, not particularly well sourced, and the article does not say this nearly as explicitly as the ALT4 hook. The source cited in the article is a 1998 report from Human Rights Watch, describing the situation as it existed in 1997. There are some indications that the Palestinian Authority may have altered the law during the last 12 years. --Orlady (talk) 18:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but violators of what exactly, Orlady? You have argued, with some justification, that this or that proposed statement is not particularly well sourced, but I still don't think you've adequately addressed my point that the fundamental statement - that there is a law specifically prohibiting the sale of land to Jews - is itself only obliquely sourced at best. Why should we adhere to scrupulous standards of scholarship when it comes to statements about "holdovers from Jordanian law" and so on, while ignoring the fact that we don't have a rock solid reference for a statement upon which the entire premise of the article depends? This does not seem to me to represent a consistent approach. Gatoclass (talk) 12:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I have suggested that the hook could say "Israelis" instead of "Jews". (Some sources use one of these terms, some use the other, some use both, and some use terms like "occupiers".) --Orlady (talk) 14:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I have re-proposed brewcrewer's earlier alt hook, which in retrospect I have decided meets NPOV, and is certainly an improvement on the original. I think it would also meet the concerns about factual accuracy expressed by Orlady about some of the other alternatives. Gatoclass (talk) 06:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I noticed an additional potential issue with bc's alt, and have accordingly tweaked it a little. I've also added an additional alt, still based on brewcrewer's version, so there's a choice of two there now, either of which I think I would find acceptable. Gatoclass (talk) 07:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't find them acceptable, they are just too apologistic. ("Yeah, I know, but there's a REALLY GOOD reason for it"). I suggest that an uninvolved admin promote the original hook, or another bare factual one, and leave the reader to figure out the rest. But someone pick something. Please.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:44, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I had to strike them anyhow, because they are too long. Gatoclass (talk) 11:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's a source (though again only from a media outlet) which states the Jordanians passed a law in 1973 banning the sale of land to "Israelis". It goes on to say a "relatively more moderate law" replaced it in 1996 which "effectively barred the sale of land to non-Arabs".

This source strongly indicates that there is no law specifically banning the sale of land to Jews. Rather, it's merely a law that "bars the sale of land to non-Arabs" and then only "effectively" not specifically. So the premise of this article is beginning to look very tenuous indeed. Gatoclass (talk) 17:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)