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• 2011 reform proposals

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

Proposals for handling GibraltarpediA nominations were discussed at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options

As much as I disagree with Jimmy on some issues, he's at one with editors who believe DYK needs reform: "I remain in favor of uncoupling dyk from new articles."

I know that there's a solid proportion of editors who want good articles to be included—I saw a proposal for at least one per shift. This makes sense to me in terms of encouraging the logical progression from DYK to GA to FA vector. And boosting the profile of GA, which sorely neglected.

Could we at least start an RfC to do this? Tony (talk) 13:03, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, that would disqualify all of my GAs except Gita Gutawa as they've all been featured on DYK before (generally before reaching GA, but...). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Is that what this discussion was? Wikipedia:Did_you_know/2011_reform_proposals

 — Maile66 (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Essentially, yes, and few people cared for it. As DYKs cannot be on the mainpage more than once, that limits the scope a bit (as I implied above). Also, GAs are not of necessarily high quality; I've seen some GAs fail the DYK criteria. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  That may be because the DYK criteria are absurd. Malleus Fatuorum 00:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Just my perspective and my own motivation for being here. DYK is a good place to hone acceptable Wikipedia writing. I'm not involved in GA, so I can't comment, except to say I can't imagine GA taking on articles of 1,500 characters. Wasn't DYK originally intended to encourage new writers? It still does that, just not exclusively. Yeah, we get a lot of repeaters, and I'm one of them. We get some editors who are exceptional. But there's a lot of newbies who are feeling their way through the dark on Wikipedia and it's bottomless pit of rules and regulations. Learning Wikipedia rules is not for the faint of heart. DYK is a better place for new people to start. GA on DYK just puts the brakes on DYK's original intent.  —  Maile66 (talk) 14:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I object to that. Why should we dilute DYK with stuff from GA? If Wikipedia wants to raise the profile of GAs, then give them their own spot on the main page and leave DYK for the new, expanded and bewly sourced articles. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 14:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Integration of GA with DYK has been proposed a number of times before, it's something of a perennial proposal here but has always failed to gain consensus. I think Jimbo's reservations with regard to DYK have been known for a long time, Jimbo wants better quality control but who doesn't? We'd all like better quality control, and not just for DYK, but there are always going to be limits with a volunteer-run project that "anyone can edit" which also happens to be sorely lacking in effective dispute resolution procedures. Gatoclass (talk) 14:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be fairly good idea, especially if it only took one slot. Why would it "dilute" DYK? I feel like it would improve it. In regards to Crisco's comment above, what would people think about a rule that allows GA's to appear again if they weren't a GA when they were on the main page and it's been at least a year? Ryan Vesey 14:28, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no reason to suppose it would somehow "improve" DYK since quality control methods at GA are not necessarily better, and arguably less stringent, than at DYK. What it would do is make eligible articles and content that are not new, thus eliminating DYK's focus. This would open the submission floodgates even further, potentially leading to a decline in quality rather than an improvement. Gatoclass (talk) 14:40, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think an easy way to counteract this would be to create a separate page for GA noms. The process would be done separately and one GA per queue would mean there isn't a huge difficulty when promoting articles. I think the idea that GA quality controls aren't necessarily better is incorrect. While occasional poor articles slip through the GA process, it's requirements are much more stringent than DYK's. DYK doesn't require articles to comply with WP:LEAD GA does. If I could imagine a process, I'd put the GA at the bottom, no picture, no special reference. The only part I'd change is the "From Wikipedia's newest content: to reference good content as well. Ryan Vesey 14:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)I like DYK because I like reading new interesting things. Most hooks are interesting and it catches the reader's attention. While the TFA is of high quality, the blurbs aren't usually as catchy. I think we should keep DYK for these reasons. Can we tighten up the quality? Sure. Can we include a GA? Yes and I agree with Ryan that if the GA was a DYK but not a GA at the time, it can be DYK again but with a different hook. We could have a separate section on the noms page for the GA candidates. Yes, we need more articles and reviewers at the this time.PumpkinSky talk 14:54, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The GA process is supposedly more rigorous but it isn't necessarily the case. For example, GA relies on one reviewer while a DYK can have any number of reviewers. GA doesn't even have a minimum text requirement, DYK at least has a 1.5k minimum. Ultimately though, the quality of reviews in either system relies on the quality of reviewers, if GA merged with DYK, what is to stop rubber stamp reviews going through the same way they sometimes go through at DYK now? Finally, there is still the question of DYK's focus which is new content not recently promoted content. There are some good arguments for keeping the focus of DYK where it is currently IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 15:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we include GAs or merge with them, we should make the standard a combination of the most stringent parts of each.PumpkinSky talk 15:19, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IMO DYK should continue to use the same nomination process, and allow GAs to be nominated just like new articles and expanded articles are allowed. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 16:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

None of my own articles have ever got to GA (or even managed to get reviewed..) so I'd have to withdraw from this area. I think playing DYK has led me to concentrate on making new articles at the expense of improving old ones. It certainly incentives the creation of new articles - but is this what we want? Secretlondon (talk) 16:49, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By this do you mean incentivizing the creation of new articles or having a GA in the DYK slot? Ryan Vesey 17:21, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)The current system incentivises the creation of new articles. Having one GA is neither here nor there, but it wouldn't address any of the problems with DYK. Secretlondon (talk) 17:45, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The majority of my DYKs are 5x expansions, so I consider that argument a false dichtomy. Anyway, as far as this topic goes, I do support adding the odd GA to the mix, but I also have to say that name dropping Jimbo to try and encourage such a change is lame. He is not god, merely another editor with an opinion (and truth be told, I become more inclined to oppose any change framed in this fashion, on general prinicple). I also get a chuckle out of the "but GA doesn't even have 1500 character minimum!" argument, simply because no article that short could be comprehensive enough to pass a GA nomination. This really is WP:PEREN and likely to fail, but imo, the cleanest way to perform such an integration would be to allow only recently passed GAs to be nominated for DYK, and said article would have to follow the normal DYK nomination procedure. Resolute 17:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"but GA doesn't even have 1500 character minimum!", well, it certainly does not. Chris857 (talk) 00:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is to my mind one of the big differences between Good articles and DYKs. DYK's seem to rely much more on objective criteria (word minimums, at least one reference per paragraph etc) whereas the criteria at Good articles are more subjective (prose, broadness, neutrality etc). It is up to a reviewer to decide if the article is broad enough, not an arbitrary number of words. AIRcorn (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

Alternate GA proposal

This proposal has been moved to Talk:Main_Page#GA_Main_Page_slot_proposal

 —  Maile66 (talk) 20:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

People who read this and post at the Main Page talk - this proposal is NOT about merging GA with DYK. It's about preventing that very thing by giving GA its own section. Looks to me like some people did a copy and paste from the above DYK proposal over to the GA proposal. They aren't the same proposals.  —  Maile66 (talk) 01:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finding a workable plan

I'm confused why this got a Watch List promo (as an RfC I think) here but not RfC tag. Plus now have to re-read and see if I got confused above. Oi. CarolMooreDC 15:11, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've started a conversation at WT:GAN to discuss how this could be implemented. If this might happen, WP:GAN needs to be on board with it and there is zero evidence as a project that they are working towards doing that at this time, nor that they have the ability to actually implement it. --LauraHale (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's very concerning that none of the proponents seems to have stopped to discuss this with WP:GAN. It seems to be a case of a group of people seeking to override the views of one WikiProject's members and force a de facto merger with another WikiProject, without even finding out whether it would be feasible to implement the proposal in the first place. The whole thing seems to be very poorly thought out. Prioryman (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The basic premise of the current proposal seems to be this: Wikipedia Did You Know will take over governing of Wikipedia Good Article Nominations in order to integrate the Good Articles into DYK. If this understanding is inaccurate, who will be responsible for Good Articles appearing on the front page? If this proposal passes, who will be charged with implementing it? --LauraHale (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you seriously believe that the premise is that DYK will take over the governance of GAN then you really are living in cloud cuckoo land, and I'll have a pint of whatever you're drinking. Malleus Fatuorum 22:26, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where has this crazy idea of a merger come from? I've seen no such proposal. Malleus Fatuorum 22:27, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See #Proposal above. It presupposes that DYK reviewers will somehow take responsibility for also reviewing GAs for displaying on the Main Page. Frankly we have enough difficulty getting through DYK reviews as it is, without adding an extra burden in the form of GA reviews. I'm baffled that this seems to have been proposed as a done deal without consulting anyone about it, evaluating whether it is feasible or even suggesting doing an initial trial to answer these questions. I have no idea how they suppose it's going to be done, and I rather doubt that the proponents will be willing to do any of the heavy lifting necessary to make it work. Prioryman (talk) 22:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Worth noting: The system, as it stands would be this: QPQ would be required for DYK eligible articles. QPQ could absolutely not be done for GA reviews as WP:GAN has repeatedly proposed this for GAN but the community rejects this proposal or there is no consensus. Thus, a two tiered review system will be in play in terms of reviewing. This is just one of the issues involved that needs to be addressed. --LauraHale (talk) 23:21, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LauraHale, I'm glad someone is thinking in terms of logistics here. A lot of people above have given a Support or Oppose to the idea of merging the two, but are only reacting to the basic thought.

• Seems to me this can't happen unless the GA group agree to subordinate their authority to DYK. I mean, DYK can't just walk in and take it away from GA. What are the chances of that?
• Also, I think DYK struggles with the newbie reviewer learning the process. Or the seasoned reviewer who for whatever reason decides to pass something without actually reading it. Tossing GA into the mix would only compound that.
• And how about the selection of something already rated GA, but within days of being GA it gets numerous edits, not all of which improve the article but rather lower its quality.

You are the first person to inject into this conversation that a process would have to be worked out. Dare I say this - what this discussion needs is a numbered (or bullet point) list of how such a merge process would work. That could evolve into quite a dialogue itself. But it's not well-thought out until there's a list of details that need to be considered. Thank you for bringing this up. — Maile (talk) 00:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if you look at where the proposal is coming from, this doesn't seem to be a matter of WP:DYK trying to take away WP:GAN's cheese; it appears to be something that is being imposed on both WikiProjects without the agreement of either one's members. I think this is a non-starter, because as the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide says, "A WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project, which includes defining an article as being outside the scope of the project." In other words, it's not for non-members of the two projects to unilaterally redefine their scope, which is what seems to be happening here. WikiProjects can't be forcibly merged unless in certain rare instances, such as abandonment (which obviously doesn't apply here). Prioryman (talk) 01:03, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A merge couldn't possibly work IMO, but it's an interesting and unanswered question as to how any main page GAs would be chosen; the current DYK criteria are clearly inappropriate. Malleus Fatuorum 01:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why I think this is a Trojan Horse for an eventual bid to sweep away DYK. Look at where this issue came from in the first place. It started with a moan by AndyTheGrump on Jimbo Wales' user talk page, followed up by Tony1, who has been campaigning against DYK for years. Jimbo (engaging in his now-usual hit-and-run posts) replied, "I remain in favor of uncoupling dyk from new articles". [1] The following day, Tony1 kicks this discussion off with the heading #One GA per shift? Jimmy's on board for reforming DYK – note, Jimbo did not say anything about adding GA to DYK, nor did anyone suggest it on his user talk page. That suggestion comes entirely from Tony1 and is merely a revival of his failed push last year for the same thing, taking advantage of Jimbo's throwaway comment. It's true that the specific proposal comes from someone else but it's not to hard to detect the agenda behind it. I predict that if this goes into effect, it will be an unworkable fiasco, and that the failure will be used to make a case for shutting down DYK altogether. Prioryman (talk) 01:20, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although I think that DYK is a misguided waste of space myself, I have some sympathy with that analysis. The bottom line though is that it's completely counter-intuitive to have a main page section entitled "Did you know" if its real purpose is not to inform or surprise readers but simply to reward new editors for achieving some kind of minimum standard. Malleus Fatuorum 01:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Malleus is spot-on. I don't seek to destroy DYK, but to improve the standards of reviewing (both hooks and stubs), and to share a little of the space with the best of GA. This hogging of a main-page slot by a single and somewhat misguided approach that now belies its original intent has gone on far too long. Tony (talk) 01:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @ Tony1, Let's for the sake of arguement say we agree that Malleus is spot on. Please provide details on how you would implement this solution.

• Does DYK subsume GA?
• Does GA subsume DYK?
• Which rules govern reviewing?
• Or do separate reviewing practices stay in place with QPQ required for DYK but no for GAN?
• Is there a timeliness rule for DYK but not for GA?
• Who elevates GAs to the DYK area?
• Does GA continue with only one reviewer?
• Does GA inclusion run similar to TFA for being selected for being put into a DYK selection?
• Does GA run one a day in the DYK area or does GA have its own schedule?

--LauraHale (talk) 01:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• LauraHale, I hope you don't mind that I bullet-pointed your questions. But those questions get to the heart of this.

• If we AGF that the DYK process is broken, what is the solution and what are the detailed steps of implementation?
• If we AGF that the inclusion of GA will improve DYK, what is the detailed plan of implementation?
• What persons or bodies are actually authorized to sign off on the changes, and what steps need to be taken to achieve that?

Most people on this discussion seem to know what is wrong, or right, with DYK. But does anybody actually have a plan? — Maile (talk) 12:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I think your question demonstrates the real problem here. Let me give you an example of an interesting hook that has nothing to do with either DYK or GA: "did you know ... that on 27 November 1809, 54 Berners Street became the most famous street in London?" As long as DYK remains a tacky reward for those producing minimally satisfactory stubs then it will continue to be a disservice to our readers. Malleus Fatuorum 02:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  A stub cannot become a DYK. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:32, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the top proposal was to go ahead I think that the Good article crowd (by crowd I just mean that the discussion should be held on a Wikipedia:Good Article page, anyone can of couse comment) should choose the Good article to be featured and the hook. That page will be run similar to this except to GA standards. It can then be moved to the appropriate prep area here. It won't hurt to have further eyes on it here if someone wishes to. The new articles can still be run to there own standards. There is no reason to merge and no one is subservient to anyone else. Also each group retains roughly the same functions and sets there own guidelines and standards. AIRcorn (talk) 12:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: No merger needed. Just keep the two groups as separate entities and devise a method for them to work together in providing content for the DYK section of the main page. It might be good to determine that each group get X number of spots on the main page's DYK section per day. It could be a single GA and several new articles or something closer to 50:50. Optionally, the current DYK group may want to rename itself to something like "Promoting new content" to avoid confusion and turf battles over the new DYK process. –Mabeenot (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. A merger is most certainly not necessary - or desired, imnsho. If there comes consensus to allow GAs to become DYKs, then the article should go through the DYK review process exactly as any other article, and regardless of the GAN process. Resolute 23:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Even if they are to be reviewed here again I would still like to see them come initially from a GA selection process. Something like the featured list main page request. If Good articles are going to be featured on the main page I would like to think the GA editors have some editorial control over which ones get chosen. I don't see the point in just restricting it to recent Good articles either. If there is a Good article, which still meets the standards, has a decent hook and has not been on DYK before then it should be eligible. As to the number of slots, I think one is enough (ideally the top one) and the article should be kept up there all day. Just and an "And" to From Wikipedia's newest content: and move it below the GA DYK. Separates GA's from new content, doesn't take up any more space, won't necessarily put any extra workload on DYK (depends if they want to review the article as well) and as only one GA has to be chosen each day allows plenty of time for reviewing and fine tuning the article. If the regulars here wish, they could remove the 5x criteria (if you are going to expand an article 5x then you should be able to get it to GA standard) to compensate for the lost slot. AIRcorn (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The image slot? That's... certainly not going to resonate well with other editors. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• It would be absolutely unacceptable to me at least, and I think others would agree. I don't want to see this harebrained proposal harming DYK, but it's looking more and more to me like that is actually the point of the proposal. Prioryman (talk) 23:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it have to be the image slot, surely the image could be for any slot. ITN and OTD seem to mix it up without any major issues. And how is looking to improve the quality of DYK supposed to harm it. AIRcorn (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• There's been a push to get it so the image goes next to the text it refers to, but that's not working very well. At the very least DYK can guarantee the top image refers to the hook next to it, which is something useful for readers. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a minor issue in the scheme of things, I personally would have aimed to have the best hook or article in the top spot. Put the Good article on the bottom then, just as long as it can be differentiated from the other new articles someway and there is some oversight from the GA end I will be happy. AIRcorn (talk) 06:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Limit to GAs on WP:CORE and WP:VITAL topics

Feel free to move this to a better spot but I'm curious as to how this proposal would go with the "GAs at DYK" crowd. Many of us who oppose this idea oppose it because we believe that DYK serves an important role by encouraging new article creation and feel that this role would be diluted at a time when there is still a lot of work left to do. The strongest argument by proponents of "GAs at DYK" is that Wikipedia would be better served by content improvement instead of content creation. Many critics of DYK often point to some of the "fluff" articles that get posted at DYK about TV shows, pop songs, etc and it is fair criticism. However, even a quick look at WP:GA shows that they are not immune to "fluff" articles either. While "GAs at DYK" proponents claim that the "carrot" of Main Page exposure would encourage editors to work on improving some of our most important core and vital articles, there is no way to guarantee that would actual happen. There is no way to guarantee that we won't be seeing more GAs on Pokeman characters, TV episodes, etc just being funneled along to DYK. So why not re-orient this proposal to specifically encourage work on our WP:CORE and WP:VITAL articles? I can tell you as an original oppose vote on the proposal above, I for one would switch my sentiments if the proposal was rewritten to focus specifically on core and vital articles. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as numerous encyclopedic topics are not at Core or Vital; these pages are also very systemically biased, as what is important for one country may not be important for another. I also fully oppose the description of songs, albums, and films as "fluff" when these works can have long-lasting effects on the population and culture. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I should clarify that this sub-proposal is not to limit all of DYK to just Core and Vital article as I agree that there are many notable, encyclopedic topics outside those categories. Rather, this is more of a compromise proposal that would allow some GAs to be included but not dilute as badly the important role of DYK in fulfilling an encyclopedic need. We don't have an encyclopedic need to feature GAs on the Main Page just for the sake of featuring GAs. We do have an encyclopedic need to not only encourage article creation for under-represented topics but also to improve on the content of our most important core and vital articles. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We have an encyclopaedic need to encourage editors to improve the content on all our topics as much, if not more so, than adding new content. If it is about encyclopaedic need GAs have as much right to the main page as new articles. AIRcorn (talk) 01:17, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If your agenda is purely just to find a way to squeeze GAs onto the Main Page, that is fine but that agenda should be taken over to the Village Pump or Talk:Main Page to ask for GA space rather than find a "back door" way through DYK. The original proposal above, as far as I can tell, is about improving the content on DYK which is often criticized for its "lame hooks and articles". I was noting that many of the same type of articles that DYK gets criticized for featuring are often of the same type of subject matter that gets promoted to GAs so this idea, on its surface, is not going to solve anything at DYK but only further dilute an important encyclopedic purpose of encouraging new article creation. But if, as some of the proponents of the "GA at DYK" crowd suggest, that having the "carrot" of main page exposure could encourage people to work on improving some of our most important core and vital articles then this proposal takes on a whole other light. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have neither supported or opposed the above proposal to include Good articles in with DYK. If anything my comment is opposed to the idea. If it does happen, which is quite possible given the quality of the opposes and the recent swing in !votes, then I want to make sure it is done with the GA projects interests taken into account. All I am doing above is disagreeing wth your interpretation that the more important "encyclopaedic purpose" is new articles rather than improving articles. AIRcorn (talk) 02:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am well aware that you were proposing only the GAs be limited to core and vital topics, but that in itself is already too much self-limitation. I can write encyclopedic articles on "serious" or "fluff" topics, both types I've gotten through FAC, so I don't worry about my writing. It's the principal. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I like your way of thinking, Agne, and I agree with you on many points; however, I think it might be difficult to implement or cause confusion. I also agree with Crisco's point about non-vital articles also having value. --Tea with toast (話) 00:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment "Fluff" is very subjective, as is "Vital". Which one of our particular gods of DYK at Mount Olympus would be given the power to stand in judgement of the importance of any given subject? Pop culture is fluff to some, but it wasn't fluff to Andy Warhol. Some people think sports coverage of any nature is fluff. It would be very hard to set the parameters on something that really comes down to one person's taste vs. another's. And anyone who thinks TV shows or pop songs are fluff hasn't been counting the revenue on them. — Maile (talk) 00:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From this proposal's stand point, it is very simple. If an article on the WP:CORE or WP:VITAL list is brought up to GA then it is featured in an DYK slot. No Olympian gods are needed. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Why not just bring it to FA and get all the space? This idea just reeks of rulecreep, as it would be applied once a year... or less often. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DYK in recent times has become much more efficient in terms of waiting list, which has made DYK a much better place I think for its contributors. However, from my own perspective and I dare say several others, the 5 days deadline to nominate an article is too short a period to produce real quality. I often feel rushed and articles such as Hassan II Mosque suffer as a result because not enough time was given to be able to fully copy edit and then nom. The article has since improved but the nomination for it was rushed and attracted criticism. It is of course possible to produce a high quality article if started from a sandbox and if you work hard solely on one article for days but many editors myself included dislike working in a sandbox. From my angle, often working on several projects at the time, the time needed to conduct research, collaborate in writing an article while waiting for each other's inputs, and then fully copyedit/proof read it among other wiki and RL distractions before nomming needs to be longer than 5 days, especially as some of us on here have only a limited time to edit daily. I believe that if the deadline was relaxed to say 10 days, it would give editors more of a chance to produce something of higher quality or at least spot some of the more glaring errors/plagiarism before it hits the main page. I'm sure some will disagree, but as the most prolific contributor to DYK, I know that this for me at least would encourage more copyediting and quality improvements before my article collaborations hit the main page.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

support Yes I like your idea of 10 days. Getting an article up to scratch in 5 days can be difficult and I am sure to have missed several opportunities because the time limit was passed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support -I agree with this, though we might start with 7 days & see if the sky falls in. But especially for those who eg only edit at weekends, 10 days would allow two weekends of work. It might also reduce the load on reviewers as I'm sure I'm not the only one who has sometimes nominated articles to meet the deadline, aware they were not fully finished and did not yet fully meet the criteria, but would do so after a few more days. Usually I do this before a reviewer gets to it, but not always. Johnbod (talk) 09:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support I agree with this. In practise, it happens already, because it frequently takes another five days after nomination for a reviewer to look. But why not install it, 7 and 10 days would be fine with me, better for quality, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support the 5-day rule has always struck me as arbitrary, having the grace period extended to 10 days would have minimal effect on the process but would give a boost to the quality. And at 10 days, I think we can safely make it a rigid deadline, whereby no article could be accepted beyond it (unlike how it is now, where many articles are slightly beyond the deadline, including some of mine). Yazan (talk) 13:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Prefer the 10 days suggestion as that would give two full weekends to work on an article. But even 7 days would be better than 5. Surely article quality would improve. Dare I say vastly improve? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Seems sensible. JN466 14:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support.  —  Maile66 (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as some people do not create their articles in user space and thus fall afoul of the five day rule while polishing the article. Better quality, please. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Will improve quality and help contributors. Ryan Vesey 15:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, unless there is a clear increase in the standards expected of new articles. Srsly. I think DYK is great because it encourages new article writers to aspire to a higher standard than merely writing a couple of sentences and surviving NPP, but DYK is not high on the quality ladder - far below GA or FA - so it really shouldn't take that long. The last time I focussed on DYK, I wrote 25 articles on ottoman taxation in 5 days - and still had time to do other work elsewhere on enwiki, too. If somebody said they needed more time to get hold of better images, or get input from a peer or whatever, I could believe that - but those aren't DYK prerequisites. There's no way that DYK-quality should need more than five days; but if the community wanted a 10 day deadline in conjunction with slightly higher quality requirements, I could support that. On a second issue, it looks like we have a long-term trend towards surpluses of DYK hooks - lowering the threshold would just make that problem worse. Unless, of course, we revisit the idea of faster rotation of hooks on the main page. Supply and demand... bobrayner (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. (ec) Five days is perfectly sufficient. No evidence has been offered that this, implemented, will improve anything. People won't start their improvements any sooner than they do now, 2 days from the deadline. If they do start sooner, the extra time will expose incomplete, underdeveloped content online for longer, and encourage slow, on-wiki work, which eventually will result in demands and complaints for even more time. A longer deadline also doubles the window of opportunity to lose the DYK to another, quicker, editor. No, people can, and do, now easily develop and expand articles and sections off mainspace (in a subpage, sandbox, or offline), to present as fait accompli. Smart creators and expanders craft their DYKs while working. We should be encouraging that, not discouraging it. --Lexein (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See the history and diffs of Hassan II Mosque. There's proof. It was nommed several days too early before we'd had the chance to fully copyedit it based on "must meet deadline" only. When you're rushing to meet a deadline because you don't want to miss the DYK then there's something not right.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's appropriate to set a longer deadline for all DYKs, to protect against the tiny minority of cases where a DYK gets nominated "too early" (which would apply to expansions and not new articles anyway). I'm sure we could have a more practical solution - along the lines of "If person A nominates an article whilst Person B is still expanding it and they don't feel ready, B can withdraw the nomination". Which is already technically possible, of course. Hassan II Mosque is a fine article, but it's hardly a typical DYK, and it seems that your argument hinges on one of the ways in which it differs most from the typical DYK. bobrayner (talk) 16:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be getting confused here. Who said anything about "I don't think it's appropriate to set a longer deadline for all DYKs". Editors are free to nominate the article 1 minute after creation or 9 and half days after creation. What does it matter? Editors have the opportunity of anything up to 10 days to nominate their article. And yes it happens a lot that editors haven't got it up to the level they'd like to have within 5 days and wouldn't mind a couple more days to make final improvements before nomming. Editors can still nominate an article immediately after creation and get in on the main page in a couple of days or they can take a little longer and nominate when they're ready. I don't see why you've spoken out strongly against this. It is just intended to relax editors and not have to worry about getting it "done" in just a few days. By no means would allowing editors to have a bit longer period to nominate affect article output or productivity. If anything it should encourage quality.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, I was confused because your original proposal appeared to extend the deadline to 10 days without any caveats, but now it seems you're arguing the extension would only apply to a subset of DYK candidates..? OK, what are the conditions? (Bearing in mind that "5 days to write a DYK unless you want 10 days" is functionally equivalent to "10 days to write any DYK"). Alternatively, if you wanted higher quality, I would be right behind you; but the proposal people are !voting on is about making a threshold easier rather than harder.

I hope you don't mind me fixing your indentation again. (It seemed like you were replying to me, so I indented accordingly). bobrayner (talk) 18:09, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. For many of the reasons stated above. I think this proposal will also serve to increase the quality of articles submitted for DYK, as editors don't feel the need to rush an article in order to submit it to DYK by the fifth day. Cbl62 (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This certainly sounds like a good idea to me. I personally don't run into problems with the timeframe requirement, because I tend to work on new or improved articles in my user space before moving them over to article space, but I recognise that not everyone works that way. Extending the timeframe will help to make contributing to DYK more approachable for more editors, which can only be a good thing. Prioryman (talk) 18:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. While it can be a tight thing unless one goes the userspace draft route, we already have a tradition of bending this rule a bit on a case by case basis: what used to be known as the "Swahili rule" (I believe the phrasing used to be, "Five days sometimes means six days or more in Swahili", with a link to WP:AGF or something), plus the culture of DYK being "Let's get this article to pass if at all possible" making it traditional for a reviewer to say not "This fails, it was not long enough when nominated" but rather to simply look at what it looks like on the day of the review (almost always days and sometimes more than a week after the nomination) or to say "This needs another 250 characters of prose, fix that." In other words it's not really much of a problem as it is, providing we maintain the focus on trying to get it to pass that the project has historically had. If on the other hand we increase the nominal length of time, the expected standards will inevitably rise, which will mitigate against one of our purposes, to encourage new editors. It's fairer and more useful for the reviewers to work with the article creators and/or nominators on improving the article than to ratchet up the expected standard from the get-go, even by implication. (There's GA for higher standards.) And it directly conflicts with another of our purposes, to showcase new articles. There's already a regrettably long delay before the average nomination gets to the Main Page; while I agree, something should be ready, and I recognize that people would still be free to nominate an article immediately after its creation, let's not further increase that average time without good reason. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The waiting list for the front-page exposure is already weeks long almost to a point of being ridiculous sometimes. There's enough time to keep working on improving new articles once they have been nominated within the first five days of creation. The actual size of the DYK nom page (as it stands now) is completely out of control due to transclusions. I remember how it used to look six years ago. Now, I'm almost scared to go there. To be perfectly honest I would rather see the deadline reduced to three (3) days in order to take the load of the shoulders of people who keep the DYK environment going. I feel that their devotion is being already abused enough by the existing rules. Do you guys sleep at all? Poeticbent talk 19:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum. Sandboxes are not the only solution. I myself write in the Preview panel and than copy-paste the preformatted content into my text editor and save it there (not in Wiki) for the next day. I paste it back into Preview when I'm ready to continue. This way, the submitted entry has no prior history. However, I'm concerned mostly with the Template talk:Did you know ridiculous size right now, not the comfort of the happy-go-lucky nominators who flood it with half-baked articles. Poeticbent talk 20:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. If someone doesn't like working in a sandbox, that's their personal choice. But that's no reason to change a long-existing rule which has worked well for everyone else. The argument about quality improving is generally bogus -- any time there's a deadline, people will simply put things off until the last minute, then we'll have the same rushed situation as now. Agolib 20:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose People regularly work in sandboxes, and it can take days for an article to be reviewed.Secretlondon (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose While I have no doubt that some nominations would be improved by this change, my experience leads me to believe that the overall effect of this change is that it would only increase the number of poorly written, last minute nominations coming into the DYK process. Well written nominations require planning and effort. This proposal primarily rewards procrastination. --Allen3 ^talk 21:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I don't follow. How exactly? If the time window to nom an article is extended to 10 days if anything there should be less "last minute nominations" coming into the DYK process. If editors are given a 10 day period to write something instead of a 5 day period naturally you'd expect the articles to have the potential to be copyedited more and improved in 10 days than 5.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your premise is based upon the assumption that if a person is allowed 10 days to perform improvements instead of just 5 that they will use all 10 days to make improvements. Most people are lazy and will stop making improvements once they think a nomination meets a minimum acceptable standard. An extra 5 days provides no benefit if they are never used. Instead of being used to improve marginal nominations past the minimum level needed to prevent rejection, my experience on DYK suggests the extra 5 days will be used mostly to scrape together additional nominations. --Allen3 ^talk 13:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I might be willing to support this is if it is explicitly bundled with some kind of increase in quality requirement. We should be trying to increase article quality but also decrease the number of nominations. Volunteer Marek  22:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as already noted, if one is concerned about the time that writing/expanding an article will take, the use of sandboxes will eliminate the time limit problem. I very rarely will write my DYK's outside of my sandboxes now, which gives me much more freedom to get the article where I want it before I transfer it to a live article.--Kevmin § 23:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. It very easy to work offline (or in a sandbox), and thus avoid any stress with regards to the 5-day limit. I work offline, and only launch the article once it is ready. The 5-day window is not a problem at all. Manxruler (talk) 09:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support—and while we're at it, can this dreadful times-five rule, open to abuse, be binned immediately? DYKs should be judged on more sophisticated expansionary/length criteria by reviewers ... and if we can stop hurling so many for so short a time at the main page, perhaps we'll be able to spend our reviewing resources more carefully. Tony (talk) 09:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd fully support that yes but as with this there will be opposers.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong place for the 5x discussion, why isn't it above instead? I think those who support that would be OK just flat out replacing 5x with GA. - hahnchen 14:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I would be willing to stretch to 7, but the backlog is struggling to be cleared even with 5, 10 will pen the floodgates and drown the process. Wizardman 14:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. As noted by others, sandboxes are available to prepare articles in a collaborative environment if they're likely to take more than five days to create or expand. If something unexpected comes up once in mainspace, as Yngvadottir has pointed out there is flexibility built into the system as long as the nomination is made in timely fashion. I share Wizardman's concerns above. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, take the Marrakech article. 4 days in. Still a tremendous amount of work to do on writing it. might tke at least another week to fully write. reference and copyedit it to the GA standard I'm planning on. By then I'll have gone 5 days past the deadline and it will be rejected from DYK for being well past the deadline. So essentially DYK would be rejecting a quality article. I have no motivation writing in sandboxes, so why should I be punished for taking reasonable time to produce a good article? Great articles are not written in five days. Its amusing to me some of the oppose comments here which says "what good will an extra 5 days be if its never used". I'm telling you it would be frequently used by me and my co contributors to produce better quality, better structured articles in a relaxed time frame. What damage would it do to wikipedia to allow editors an extra couple of days if it is needed for longer articles? In answer to some of the "We have flexibility" arguments below, if this is the case I wasn't aware of it. I've had hooks rejected in the past for being nominated just hours after the deadline.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Given that you were shooting for DYK, and that you know the rules, it was your personal choice to perform your expansions in mainspace. Given your experience, you know well how long things take to do. Given all that, you probably should have done your expansions in userspace or sandbox. That you did not is no rationale for proposing a DYK rule change. It's a simple enough underestimation, so just relax, improve the article and call it that the win, especially if it goes to GA, which it conceivably might. Let's look at it another way: if anybody else had proposed a 10-day period a month ago, it would have been highly contentious then, as well. My point is, it wouldn't have been a good idea a month ago, and it's not a good idea now. --Lexein (talk) 11:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC) (heavily edited for tone --Lexein (talk) 14:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC))[reply]

• Oppose. we already have, D9, and you don't have to start an article in mainspace, start it in user space and move it only when ready, same for an expansion, do that in user space too.PumpkinSky talk 00:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose: There is a lot of time to draft things in sandboxes. This can be done for articles already in the main space. Collaboration can still be done on these articles in the user space before going to the main space. --LauraHale (talk) 08:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, Drafting things in sandboxes is helpful to get it started, but in principle contrary to cooperative editing. People that do not use sandboxes and decide to "go mainspace" asap will in this proposal havet the possibility to gradually improve to get the article up to standard. We're not in a hurry when writing wikipedia; and 5 days extra doesn't make it not-new anymore... L.tak (talk) 09:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, if someone doesn't have the time to prepare a nomination within the deadline, the sandbox can be used. That being said, the proposed deadline would also increase DYK's backlog. To be honest, I think that the deadline should be decreased in order to reduce the backlog.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 12:12, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support but only for new DYK nominators (those with <5 articles) who may not find out about DYKs or react quickly enough for our usual deadline. I think it is possible to produce a quality DYK in few hours; start-class is good enough for DYK. If one needs more time, it is not for DYK, but for B+ classes. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose because, in practice, we already have all of the flexibility that is being requested here -- Yngvadottir has expressed my thoughts rather well. No need to change the rule, but more participants need to understand the tradition of flexible interpretation of this rule. --Orlady (talk) 18:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: Adding extra leeway time would make the DYK process slightly less rushed. DYK showcases new articles - does adding 5 days onto the existing 5 days make an article any less "new"? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:00, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support -- Less rush may give people time to improve the quality of the article. --Tea with toast (話) 00:07, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I dislike encouraging editors to use a sandbox in order to make the 5 day deadline. Wikipedia is about collaboration and sandboxes limit that. I think it is better to add new content section by section to allow other editors time to make improvements to it. --Tea with toast (話) 06:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Support I don't see the point - if an editor wants extra leeway then they can always develop the article in user space and then transfer it to article space afterwards. That's basically how I create all of my articles. You can work on the thing for several months (and in some cases I have) and there's no issue with DYK. Miyagawa (talk) 19:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Changed to support. The points made about collaboration and sandboxes are quite good. Taking that onboard, I agree with the ten day extension. Miyagawa (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Ideally, we'll all get free pie. Actually, we won't. Ideally, editors collaborate to help one editor get a DYK on the front page. Actually, it's excruciatingly rare, and not worth changing a DYK-wide rule, with all the actual negative impact it will have, for the anecdotal, unproven (meaning, nonexistent) "benefit." --Lexein (talk) 21:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

actual negative impact it will have - how is this statement not anecdotal? AIRcorn (talk) 02:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support But this could be introduced as a 7 day initially to see if the anticipated problems/benefits do arise, allowing them to be addressed before proceeding to the full 10 days. Arjayay (talk) 14:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong support for so many reasons.

  Five days made sense oh ... years ago, when a lot of what was submitted here couldn't really, and didn't have to, rise above the level of quick-and-dirty just-better-than-stubs. Hell, when I started, Wikipedia was still in its "Sources? We don' need no steenkin' sources" era. You could write an article that way in a day, nominate it for DYK (which itself was a chaotic mess that I strongly caution anyone who wasn't involved with DYK from before 2008 or so against looking up in the history. You may just go insane) and have a good chance of seeing it on the Main Page the next day. Take a look at it this way (literally): This was the way my first DYK seven years ago, back in days of old when knights were bold and BLP had not yet been invented, looked when it was linked from the Main Page. Nowadays, it takes more care to write an article you wouldn't want to be embarrassed by. I've had ten DYKs since my 500th in July, because it takes time to write and research an article.

  And let's face it, we can no longer guarantee new submitters that we will review their articles within five days, much less get them on the Main Page. While all the hooks currently on the Main Page did seem to make it there within a week, there are six nominated hooks that date to October 10, one day past the deadline, that are currently unreviewed. Three of those (one of which, granted, is a multi-article hook with a lot of them using the Linnaean names for plant species, so it's atypical) have been there since that day.

  But even a review is no guarantee that we'll put the hook on the Main Page ... look at that long section of nomination sections dating back to August, over two months ago, for problematic ones. While it seems at the moment like we're not too bad about ignoring our deadlines, neither can we say with a straight face that we strictly enforce them, either.

  And so I think we can survive giving editors 10 days. Hell, I think you could make a good case for 30 at this point. It would be more appropriate to my current pace, at the very least. Daniel Case (talk) 05:02, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Wow - so wrong. Daniel, please read my oppose above. Your comment just makes me want the time from creation/expansion to nomination shortened to 4 days, with a hard cutoff. The objective of DYK is work/reward: create/expand an article, nominate for DYK, and move on. Implied in the deadline is learn to edit/write/source faster. Sounds like you want to create a social club for hanging out. We have IRC for that. I don't think you've provided substantive evidence that extending to 10 days (or OMFG 30) will help any part of the process, other than thoroughly devaluing DYK's purpose as a pass/fail improvement sprint. If you think the lag for review is too long, apply pressure there, rather than exposing live Wikipedia articles to, once again, leisurely, deadlines are for losers, low-quality improvements. There is such a thing as fatigue. One reason DYK, at 5 days, works so well, is that it has a built-in fatigue circuit-breaker - after 5 days, put down your pencil. --Lexein (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find your oppose, only a short followup to another comment that offered little, if any, insight that would help me understand your response to my carefully considered support reflecting seven years of unbroken DYK experience. OK, I found it. I actually don't disagree with it as much as you might be think because that's actually how I work. I don't use userspace sandboxes to develop articles, and sometimes I find an article benefits from unexpected collaboration prior to nomination which it wouldn't get in userspace. Poorly developed articles in userspace are already online and turn up in search results albeit lower down; most casual readers who click on them don't realize they're drafts and think, ugh, what crap.

Back to my original response: I find this aspect of your response most disturbing: The objective of DYK is work/reward: create/expand an article, nominate for DYK, and move on. Implied in the deadline is learn to edit/write/source faster." I think it's time that we added "Wikipedia is not a racecourse" to the already lengthy list on that page, then, if that's how you see this. Why the need for speed? If you want to encourage that, go over to Wikinews and become part of that community, where getting it out there quickly is an integral part of the site's function. I once was a journalist ... believe me I understand the importance of deadlines in the news context.

But Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news site, regardless of how people do use it for that purpose when there is breaking news. And one that has gotten more serious about its requirements for articles since 2005. To put it metaphorically: back then we basically had a couple of microwaves, and fed what we cooked to people who cared only that they were fed. Now, we have a pretty good kitchen at our disposal, and feed people who've learned to discriminate in their tastes. It is thus insane to maintain the same deadlines for DYK that we had when we only had the microwaves.

There is a common saying among engineers that if you want it fast, good and cheap, you'll have to pick two out of three. Since we are all volunteers we've already picked "cheap" and we are left with "fast" or "good." I choose the latter. And, I should add, ten years (or even one) from now no one will care that the original article was written, sourced and researched in three days.

If DYK is to be about teaching new editors anything, it is about teaching them to be effective writers/researchers/editors. These are skills that are best developed with time and careful reflection, not at increasing speed. I think the review backlog reflects not a laggardliness on the community's part but an underlying awareness of this, hence giving people 30 days to develop articles would benefit everyone. And if you want to bang 'em out, you still could. No one would stop you as long as you got the job done. Daniel Case (talk) 18:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Come now, I wouldn't call it insane to keep the same deadlines if DYK hasn't changed. I think DYKA and its deadline set (what we have now), works fine for what it is and does. What you're asking for, I think, is really DYKB - a parallel, slower, non-sprint process. Same prize, different race entirely. I don't think it's fair to the sprinters to have to wait a month, just as it's unfair to the marathoners to have to sprint, when they, and the reviewers, are wrestling with larger articles. (And while we're on the subject, I want DYK on the front page to be dynamic (autoscrolling or autoupdating or resizable box) like a newsticker, so DYKs can go back to being visible for 24 hours. So there.) --Lexein (talk) 06:39, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What the hell does fairness to editors of any speed have to do with it? As long as it gets on the Main Page eventually, why should anyone care? I sure don't. Daniel Case (talk) 17:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Extending the allowable time for DYK submissions could have the effect of extending the period during which incomplete and/or poor quality articles exist in article space, until their authors decide to polish them up for DYK.

  We should instead be strongly encouraging people to perform sufficient edits in sandboxes (or off-Wiki) so that articles don't appear in article space until they're actually ready.

  As for the argument about sandboxes inhibiting collaboration, almost all of the nominations with joint creation credits which we get are from people who know each other, and such collaborations can very easily continue in sandboxes. There's plenty of time for contributions from others after it's in article space. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I agree with Mandarax. We should be promoting a culture whereby article incubation is performed in the sandbox before publishing live. The reality of collaborations is that it usually occurs with like-minded editors who plan the collaboration beforehand. I think practical consequence of this proposal becoming successful is that the nom page will become longer and more unwieldy. Sasata (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Neutral on the idea of an extension, however, we should not assume new editors know what a sandbox is or how to make use of it. I know this is going to make me sound a little slow, but I was editing three years and some months before anyone ever mentioned a sandbox to me. I was making some, shall we say, not top quality edits. Some that my conscience prodded me to go back and fix once I got better My very first try was instantly nominated for AFD. But someone finally said rather kindly, "Maybe you could write your articles in your sandbox." And then I had to do a bunch of research to find out what the heck they were talking about. My first edit was Dec 2006. My first sandbox was created April 2010. I don't care what anybody thinks is out there in the way of Wikipedia how-to stuff, and that everybody should use their sandbox. My account timeline speaks for itself. — Maile (talk) 22:03, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• You're not slow. Obvious sandbox wasn't obvious until this year, with the addition of the My sandbox link up top. I perhaps irrationally distrusted sandboxes as unprotected space, given that the main capital-S Sandbox is cleared within seconds. Your (and my) concerns about new users, I think, are met by the new link. --Lexein (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support because the current 5-day requirement is apparently intended to be flexible - see Wikipedia:Did you know/Not exactly - but most people don't realize it. This is confusing to non-regulars at this site, who don't realize the rigid-sounding requirement is actually not required. This can result in people not nominating articles that would have passed, and in valid nominations being rejected by inexperienced reviewers (thanks again, QPQ) who don't realize the 5 day rule isn't really a rule. Make the rule 10 days, and then enforce it. --MelanieN (talk) 14:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I would like to see the period extended to at least 10 days. I'm not completely sure that I agree with any limit here because even an older article that has not been significantly updated lately may still have an interesting cited fact in it that would be a good DYK candidate (and could draw attention to articles that need it), but any improvement here is better than nothing, mainly because when an article does undergo a significant expansion (or is new) the first five days are often turbulent and giving the article a little more time to improve and settle down would be useful before directing thousands of people to it.Brianwc (talk) 17:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Oppose. It's not as if we aren't already doing that. The 5-day rule is not really a rule. It's more of a guideline. Going over it for a few days is usually okay, and I've done so before. But extending it to 10 days would mean we would start considering DYKs submitted on the 11th or 15th day, and we all know that's already way too old and there'll be far more submissions than can be cleared in time. That said I'm one of those editors who don't write articles in sandboxes first. I write my articles directly, which can mean my articles can lose eligibility if I happen to get distracted in real life (it has happened). Perhaps 7 days?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support yeepsi (Time for a chat?) 10:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Extending the deadline to 10 days would give more editors and articles a chance to get involved. It would be up to the community as to which articles get selected. Cloudbound (talk) 00:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per L.Tak. Also, the very short deadline makes DYK even more for insiders than it is otherwise. Why should we be forcing people to edit in what is (for many) an unnatural way, rather than just starting with a few lines and gradually expanding? If you're not a DYK insider, you wouldn't know that you are supposed to draft something hidden away in a sandbox, then move it to make it live. (BTW I used to participate in DYK, but then it got much to complicated for me to master, so now I don't anymore.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - having just created a new article that took a week to get up to a reasonable std, five days is definitely too short. The only alternative is to "hord" then "unveal" the article rather than put it directly in mainspace where others can contribute to it - hardly great for collaboration. Oh, yeah, and some people have day jobs, which may leave the weekend as the only significant editing time (10 days would allow 2 weekends). Socrates2008 (Talk) 22:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - makes it easier for people to contribute to DYK by taking some of the pressure off, and gives them more time to focus on quality rather than just getting to the required length before the deadline. Robofish (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This whole episode (the Gibraltarpedia product placement debacle and its continuing unresolved aftermath) has left me somewhat puzzled about why exactly we need to continue with the whole DYK phenomenon. Wikipedia has changed over the years and we are (or should be) more about quality than quantity now. So why continue with DYK? Without voting, I would be interested in people's reasons for or against persisting with having this feature on the main page. --John (talk) 14:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I personally consider any comment that could be seen as implying that Wikipedia is complete is a comment that is inherently biased, as there are still fairly important articles about non-Anglosphere topics which have not even been started. The simple fact that we want more variety on the main page (especially more non-Anglosphere topics) is a good reason to keep DYK: where else is the average reader going to learn about an African village? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  You mean where else is an average reader going to learn about Gibraltaran cistern?Staszek Lem (talk) 15:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  DYK =/= Gibraltarpedia, please remember that. Take a look at the queue for DYK, then take a look at the queue for TFA or TFL: which one has more topical diversity? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Hi Crisco. I agree with you that we've barely started on non-Anglospere topics. Do you know of any analysis of the geographic spread of DYK,TFA,etc. It would be interesting to see what happens if DYK was themed, only promoting articles about a single broad topic for a month, or a week might be better to tie in with various International Week of XYZ. Even one week on 'Sudan' would make a significant difference to that topical area. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wholeheartedly agree about "without voting". FA &GA are scrutinized for quality. DYK is seems scrutinized for size and other formal stuff. DYK long lost its "wow" apeal and became yet another self-gratification tool. Look that these self-noms who boast 50+ DYKs at their talk pages. I admit I have a bit of personal grudge here: not once I spotted a "wow"-type article (I agree it was my opinion) and nominated, only to see it safely buried in expered list, in the flood of mediorcicity, such as "that Lord Richard Cavendish's loan saved the Canterbury Association from financial collapse", which is not only non-"wow" but overhyped claim: the source says it was not a loan: he was only a guarantor which is hardly a feat, not clear if he wasted a penny, and what is more the mentioned sum was guaranteed by several people, not he alone. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• As the first wikipedian to be awarded a DYK medal (it happened 7 years ago), I think you have hit the nail on the head here. --Ghirla^-трёп- 16:34, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree too. It looks like self-gratification has become its raison d'être. AndreasKolbe JN466 20:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DYK should remain where it is as it is a useful way of helping to promote new articles to the masses. It also encourages people to make edits and improve them which in turn improves Wikipedia. Yes it could be abused but that is why we put those safeguards in for the Gibraltar articles to ensure that it is not and also articles are checked at least 3 times before they are promoted. If the issue is (as above claims) that the hooks lack a wow factor then, simply all that is needed is reform of the rules to clarify it (as granted "hooky" is a vague term). I do wonder why this isn't being put to a !vote, perhaps because the result would come up as no consensus. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:22, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• As the instigator, I preferred to ask for people's reasons because asking for a vote is not supposed to be how a consensus is formed. How does it "promote new articles to the masses"? Do you have any evidence for that? --John (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the fact that features on the main page promotes them as most people probably won't be aware of them until they featured on the main page. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 17:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For what one person's opinion is worth - I like DYK, I think it's one of the best things about Wikipedia. It has multiple objectives/things it's useful for; I suspect that's part of the peoblem for some, but I like that. Namely: It's one of the few ways that content producers get strokes. It encourages both new articles and improvement of articles. The rules for acceptance of nominations may seem complex, but they are actually not at all arcane (considerably easier to understand and shoot for than a GA or an FA). It serves as a way to help people improve - the articles get critiqued and/or the editor is helped to improve them so that they get to pass, in a kind of editing workshop that is one of the best ways to help not just new editors but any editor. It draws in new contributors; many of us first learned about DYK when someone nominated one of our first articles. It encourages collaboration; there's a tradition of helpful critiquing, and as a spin-off from that, many editors submit DYKs as a pair or a group; I see much more of that at DYK than in other projects, and I see it leading to collaboration on GAs and FAs. For our readers, it provides an area of interest on the Main Page - some "hooks" may be boring to any one reader, but there will surely always be one or two of interest - and offsets the direness that tends to be present in In the News and On This Day. And it reflects the huge range of article topics. I hope it also draws readers in to the idea of editing, if only by reminding them that we have new content all the time, and therefore that people are constantly writing stuff ... I kind of hope they don't too often click a link and find an article in dire need of copyediting, but if they fix it and get bitten by the bug, I guess that's the silver lining in that cloud :-) ... A lot of Wikipedia, from the editing side, is competitive, cliquish, and bureaucratic. I like Did You Know because it isn't. I think it's fun for the readers, on balance. (Yup, Britannica doesn't have Did You Know. It also doesn't have In the News or On This Day, as far as I know, and it doesn't have infoboxes either. DYK's closest analogue is the quirky news section on sites like Yahoo!, and I think we're far more encyclopaedic than those. A good half-way between an internet news portal and a print encyclopedia, in other words.) And I think it's one of the most positive and useful editing environments for those who are here to make content - at least until they decide to run the GA gauntlet. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:51, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia achieved its current popularity because of the breadth of its coverage. When I tell people I edit WP, a common response is, "They have everything on there!". A free online encyclopedia with high quality, exhaustive entries on a limited scope of topics would be popular, but not the 5th most popular site on the planet. Like it or not, we are a middling quality encyclopedia of impressive breadth, which follows our mandate: "the sum of all human knowledge". DYK supports this mandate by incentivizing the coverage of new or under-covered subject areas. We should always seek a balance between breadth and depth, but never prioritize one above the other. The Interior (Talk) 16:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I really like the idea of DYK. I think it's a great learning tool, and a nice additional way to get people clicking on links to get them inside the encylopedia looking around.

I really don't like the bureaucratic process, the gamesmanship, and (by far don't like) the award/reward culture that has grown up due to the process. I think the process should be scrapped.

I think a very healthy first step would be to remove DYK from being tied at all to any of the GAC/FAC processes whatsoever. Let DYK be a featured content process of its own. but instead of focusing on a requirement of a "stand alone article", a DYK could be based on any factoid of information found anywhere in the encyclopedia. And make sure the DYK in question is an exemplar of writing and sourcing.

I also think there should be 2 DYKs on the main page. A new one daily, and past one: every time someone clicks the page, a different random DYK of the past. - jc37 17:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like more focus on the fact and less on the article, but I would like to keep some article criteria such as minimum length. Regarding one fact per day, we could revitalise wp:fact of the day and bring it to the front page if it is working successfully. A long time ago I drafted a proposal to bring dyk-ness to fotd. See user:John Vandenberg/Worm of Facts. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• There are two things that I like about DYK. One, the size requirements encourage articles that are less stubby, whether they are new or expanded, which is all around a good thing. Two, the reward of seeing your articles receive some form of recognition keeps up the desire to contribute, which has to help with editor retention. Sure, some of the articles are of dubious notability or the hooks are boring, but I don't think of that as a fundamental problem with DYK. As an aside to jc37, "... remove DYK from being tied at all to any of the GAC/FAC processes whatsoever", what is the current link? Chris857 (talk) 17:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, was looking at several of the discussions/polls on this page. To be clearer, I think it should be entirely separated from the idea of a "stand alone article", and so by extension should be removed from any idea of "new article", as well as the idea of tying it to GAC or anything else which has to do with article presentation of information.

  DYK is the presentation of information in factoid form, and so should stay entirely out of the various article-related criteria. - jc37 18:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I like the way it encourages folks to inline cite with a carrot rather than a stick. As far as completeness of coverage, there are still loads and loads of stubs to cover. Maybe it's time to have another sweep of stub cats to give contributors some idea of what is still stubby. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stubby, or even non-existent (for example List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan) Chris857 (talk) 02:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

English Wikipedia has become awfully provincial. The predominantly American constributors are not aware of the wider world around them. Let's take the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, its coverage in English Wikipedia is laughable: there are no articles about even major landmarks such as it:Municipio della Città Vecchia di Praga, it:Chiesa di San Nicola (Città Vecchia di Praga), it:Chiesa di San Nicola (Piccolo Quartiere di Praga). The world's oldest carpet? Spits of Azov Sea? --Ghirla^-трёп- 06:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The motion is based upon a false premise and presents a false dichotomy. The DYK process addresses quality in several ways and the articles which go through to the front page are better than the average Wikipedia article - just click random article to find something like Long Island Electric Railway, which would not pass the DYK quality tests. DYK is therefore raising the average level of quality and helps more generally by inculcating the requirements of quality into the general editing community. The English wikipedia adds about 1000 articles a day and so we're going to get quantity whether DYK exists or not. DYK is a sensible way of helping to actively manage this growth in a constructive and encouraging way. The alternative just seems to be anarchy and apathy. Warden (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep DYK. But simplify the rules in order to encourage more submissions from all those editors (like me) who have difficulty in following the procedures and cannot find simple instructions about how to review DYK submissions from others. I have been lucky to have had quite a number of my own articles on DYK over the years, but that's because others have nominated them for me. I tried to go through the procedure myself once but, although I finally succeeded in having my new article posted on the main pages, I found the procedure unnecessarily difficult to follow and decided it was too time-consuming for me to bother with again -- especially when the rules were adapted to require assessment of another DYK in parallel with a submission. Every day, I see lots of great new articles in the general area of culture (art, music, architecture, literature, language, etc.) but I am reluctant to nominate them for DYK as that would involve me in the "process". I believe that is the reason we have an inordinately high number of (very good) submissions about Bach cantatas, mushrooms and certain aspects of architecture, not to mention several hundred successes from those who are more comfortable with the rules and procedures. Some sort of assessment is of course necessary but why not make it a one paragraph response which even an idiot like me could fill out. The format would be: in submitting a new article (your own or someone else's) to DYK, confirm that it is really new and objective, ensure that it is at least 200 words long, give it a one line introduction (the so-called hook), make sure there are a couple of reliable references and see that it doesn't infringe copyright. The reviewer's task would then simply be to give it the green light or tell the editor who submitted it how to improve it (in everyday running prose rather than I checklist full of Wikipedia jargon). I think even I could cope with a procedure like that and it would certainly encourage far more submissions from the thousands of competent editors who have never dared to venture down the DYK path. I would even feel comfortable about telling newbies how to submit their work to DYK. While I am a strong supporter of Gibraltarpedia, the project has revealed how DYK can be "hijacked" for a cause, however worthy the cause may be. Let's try to generalize DYK's applicability by simplifying the process and widening the coverage. And in order not to upset all those who have been handling the existing process, we might first start by opening up an alternative approach in the form of a Wikipedia project page or even some kind of sandbox. Anyone interested? Or is this the wrong forum? --Ipigott (talk) 16:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I love DYK. It exposes me to new articles on things, places, and people I never knew about. I'm a sponge for perusing these articles and can't be the only one who feels that way. I am also a contributor and do so because I love creating articles on things, places, and people that are new to me. So, no, I don't want to say goodbye to DYK. Ipigott has hit the nail on the head regarding what I believe is a common view regarding contributing to DYK, instruction creep to the point where even experienced editors are scratching their heads, trying to figure out the "how to". And yes, Gibraltarpedia, Olympics, and other focus areas will continue to find their way to DYK. But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All in favour of keeping the baby, but could we get rid of the bathwater all the same? ;) AndreasKolbe JN466 17:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure. DYK encapsulates in microcosm everything that has gone wrong with Wikipedia. Use the Main Page space for something else, especially something that actively tries to promote (i) CSB topics (ii) core topics (iii) major improvements to articles rated as high or medium importance by at least one WikiProject. It could even be something DYK-ish focussed on those 3 things, in which case, anything that doesn't fit those criteria can have a hiatus from being DYK-eligible for, say, 5 years. After 5 years, take stock and see where WP is and how DYK is serving it. Any articles not created or improved because the creators are put off by lack of DYK-eligibility under the new approach - well I won't weep for them. Bonus from this approach: the Gibraltarpedia problem, otherwise hard to solve, goes pretty well away, since by nature the suggested criteria mostly or entirely exclude topics of promotional interest. Rd232 ^talk 20:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be on board with that. AndreasKolbe JN466 11:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on-board too. DYK as currently framed directly contradicts its original aims. A class of repeat offenders is undermining it through overuse and topic-skew (which could so easily morph into product placement). Paid editing is allowed, and I do not believe DYK should be open to abuse for easy exposure, jumping the queue over more worthy featured and good content. In particular, the confusion of short and recently begun with slap-dash who cares low standards is telling. Bin it now and replace with either nothing (the main page is far too crowded already), or something much much better that includes a proportion of GAs. Tony (talk) 12:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Place links to the most notable/glaring stubs we can find...

Ok folks, let's try to link/list some interesting broad stubs (say, less than 100 words or 200 if bigger expansion feasible). Go for it to see what else we can expand for DYK Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why bother? See below. Tony1 has decided that he has won and DYK is to be taken over by the GA crowd. I'll continue to expand articles and to write new articles, but I don't see the point of trying to fit in with our new overlord(s) and divine what kind of expansion is "worthy". Yngvadottir (talk) 15:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please stay, Yngvadottir. Tony1's declaration of victory is very much premature. We don't have any overlords (new or old) yet. Manxruler (talk) 23:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me Yngvadottir, who said anything about being taken over by "the GA crowd"? It's a matter of improving a major section on the main page by widening its scope. If you're not willing to do that, yes, it's time to close it down. Tony (talk) 01:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I think there's a decent amount of overlap between the "DYK Crowd" and the "GA Crowd", at least in terms of the top performers. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Eliminate DYK completely (replacing it with new GA promotions seems like an ok idea), on several grounds:
  1. I have long felt that DYK is a spam and crap vector, ever since watching Child of Midnight and others fill it with stupid internet memes, which were in turn nowhere near as controversial as this Gibraltar stuff (about which I don't even have words at the moment). Even with good-faith, unconflicted article expansions about well-selected topics, low-quality or incorrect stuff often gets into DYK just because it was added too recently and hasn't been checked enough. It makes us look like idiots when that happens. I think there should not be such a short pipeline to the ultra-high-visibility main page. Anything on the main page should have had solid review.
  2. I don't think creating new articles should be much of a priority for Wikipedia in general any more. We have tons of stubby articles and not enough solid ones, so we should be concentrating on quality rather than quantity. Therefore, if people are motivated by mainpage exposure to work on articles, it's better to channel the motivation into promoting articles to GA, instead of creating more stubs.
  3. Again if mainpage exposure matters, FA is a way to get a lot of it for an article, but GA is sort of a meaningless merit badge. Replacing DYK with new GA's would give GA's a lot more impact and encourage people to work on them.
  4. (added) I also like RD232's post above, criticizing DYK and suggesting recognizing CSB and core topic contributions, etc. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 06:47, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• GA reviewers appear to consistently fail to check that sources match text, that sources support text, etc. There is material that passes WP:GNG that would not pass WP:DYK because of WP:V. GA is not meaningless at all. GA is very meaningful on its own. If GA is not as meaningful as DYK, then that indicates systematic problems for WP:GA. (And I'd argue the reason WP:GA is less meaningful is not because it doesn't appear on the main page, but the clear lack of criteria like DYK, the inability to get timely reviews, etc. all factor in making WP:GA less meaningful. While this discussion has been ongoing, no systematic efforts have been made to address these issues. Putting GAs into DYK does not kill DYK: It kills GA.)--LauraHale (talk) 21:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The results above are not a simple binary, as usual in WP polls, and require more nuanced analysis.

There appear to be 72 explicit supports for the proposal to include GAs in DYK "within five days of being made GAs".

• This includes Mabeenot and Resolute in the subsequent thread; and
• It includes George Ho, who finally came out with "If this proposal passes, then limits on Good Articles should be set. The article MUST NOT be a former Good or Featured Article; this should disqualify an article from meeting a proposed criterion (NOT other criteria, like the classic fivefold)." To which John Vandenberg wrote: "Now that makes sense ;-) ." Ho then added an article must be a GA "for the FIRST TIME, not second or [more]".
• It doesn't include Jimmy Wales, who in on record as saying "I remain in favor of uncoupling dyk from new articles.".
• It doesn't include Malleus Fatuorum, who has repeatedly expressed misgivings with DYK.

There appear to be 49 opposes. In raw terms, 59.5% of participants favour the inclusion of GAs that have been passed up to five days previously. However, the figure of 49 opposes includes:

• four who opposed because they disagree entirely with with DYK in its current form (e.g. "an embarrassment", Bmclaughlin9; "a cesspool", Sven Manguard, plus Gmatsuda; and an equivocal Dharma), rather than explicitly being against the idea of including GAs.
• SilkTork and three others who are concerned about DYK reviewer workload, but apparently would consider a separate GA process for the main page; and 12 others who would be OK with a separate slot for GA on the main page (total of 16).

To summarise to the nearest percentage point: of 121 participants—

• 72 (60%) favour the addition of GAs—a few with provisos;
• 16 (13%) oppose the inclusion of GAs in the DYK section, but would consider a separate GA section on the main page;
• 33 (27%) oppose any GAs on the main page.

I believe this represents consensus (73%, that is, 60 + 13) for the addition of GAs on the main page, and that a clear majority want all DYK hooks open to GAs.

As John Vandenberg has pointed out, "I dont think there is room on the front page to have an additional section for GAs." This leads us to the practical conclusion—a compromise—as proposed in the very first thread on this topic: that a maximum of one slot per shift be allocated to a GA. This would be a very conservative interpretation of the will of the participants.

I call on editors to collaborate in adding a fourth point to the eligibility criteria:

"... an article must have been in the past five days either:

• created
• expanded at least fivefold
• newly sourced and expanded at least twofold (only if the article was an unsourced BLP)
• been promoted to GA status (maximum of one per DYK shift)."

I also call on editors to iron out any potential issues in the new system. I've left a note on John Vandenberg's page alerting him to this thread. Tony (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have said it before but I must make the point again about ill-considered polls - polls should not be taken until clear alternatives have been presented, and arguments both for and against fully elucidated. It is clear from looking at the poll results that some !voters had no idea or very misconceived ideas about the proposal in question. This greatly detracts from the reliability of the poll results in my view. Having said that, I'm not sure I feel strongly enough about this issue to call for another poll, but I would like to hear how others feel about the situation. Gatoclass (talk) 16:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting the oppose votes by interpreting their meaning and intentions of others is like putting words in other people's mouths. Please, take it easy. Clearly, there's no consensus to do anything. Besides, nobody monitors the actual validity of any of these votes anyways. Poeticbent talk 16:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Add another oppose; the way you're handling this proposal is a sham. Yazan (talk) 16:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Having just read Bluemoonset's oppose reasons above, where he points out the very high number of GA's passed in GA drives, I'm more inclined to think this poll is unreliable and that the issues need more discussion. Certainly, if up to 20 GA's a day are being passed, we are talking a different ball game since with that number of GA's being passed DYK will be completely swamped. Gatoclass (talk) 16:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Add another oppose. The proposals were not clearly laid out and consist of multiple suggestions by different editors. Also barely two weeks of "voting" is not long enough. What's the rush? Froggerlaura ^ribbit 16:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest first starting with a general vote "GAs should be included in DYK in some form", then once there is a consensus for this basic issue move on to nominated in 5 days, number/ day, etc. Froggerlaura ^ribbit 16:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think Tony1's is a reasonable analysis, but I would strongly suggest closing this section and bringing in a respected, uninvolved person - one of the bureaucrats maybe - to assess the discussion. All we are going to end up with here is a lot of bickering in last-ditch attempts to influence the result. – Steel 16:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Notice. I have posted to the Bureacrats' noticeboard to alert them of this situation. --Tea with toast (話) 02:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I definately don't think this analysis has been done fairly. It appears that from the top he includes and disregards a couple off the bat based on some previous actions. He split the opposes into the "new GA sections" and "No GAs" without splitting the supports into the unconditionals and conditionals. I'll let him off the 2 new opposes but I don't think that this shows strong support as it has been weasled around to make it look like it is at first glance. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1 is the last person who should be attempting an analysis of this sort; given his strident campaigning against DYK and the fact that this proposal essentially originated with him, he has no chance of being seen as unbiased. The poorly thought out nature of the initial proposal means that it's very unclear what people have actually voted for, and I agree entirely with what Froggerlaura suggests above. I'm also very surprised by the timing, given that discussion is still ongoing. Prioryman (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the voting on the proposal on whether to add GAs to the main page at all, located at Talk:Main_Page#GA_Main_Page_slot_proposal, it's pretty much split down the middle. Which makes the people definitively in favor of adding GAs to the main page far less clearly in the majority. The whole thing looks like a mess, and Tony1's attempt to close this already flawed process prematurely and declare victory based on a selective reading of what occurred a dubious exercise. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disregard the result and rerun as a properly organised RfC?

The initial question was very poorly thought out; no alternatives were presented; the issues were not fully set out before the poll was started, meaning that most voters haven't had enough information to make an informed decision; no thought was given by the proponents as to how the proposal would operate in practice; and there seems to have been no thought even of running a trial to see whether it was feasible. Given all of these problems, I suggest that the initial result, if it ends with there still being more support votes than opposing ones, should be disregarded. The outcome simply can't be reliable either way. If the proponents really want to push forward with the idea of running GAs in the DYK slot, I suggest that a new discussion:

1. Should be listed as a proper RfC on a separate page;
2. Should clearly set out options, with pros and cons for each;
3. Should have a clearly defined timeframe (say two weeks to define a set of options, followed by two weeks to vote);
4. Should be closed and summarised by an uninvolved party.

Doing it this way would ensure that contributors would have a clear idea of what they were voting for, what would need to be done to put the proposal(s) into effect, and what the consequences of a decision to go ahead would be. Prioryman (talk) 21:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, at the least. I mean, this is a pretty significant change that's being proposed here and we should be doing at least the minimum amount of organization and proper RfCing that we have done for other big proposals on the wiki in the past. Silverseren^C 21:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it should not be done in a slapdash method. I think disregarding this one is best as it is just a jumble. Personally, I think the question should be first, can't GA have it's own spot on the main page? If the answer to that RFC is no, then an RFC on placing GAs in with DYK should be done. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 21:48, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the RfC for that was held on Talk:Main Page and it was very slap-dish. I mean, if you're going to use a watchlist notification for this RfC, then you definitely need to use one for that proposal as well. And the Main Page wasn't the right place to have the discussion anyways. Silverseren^C 21:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good point. There are two initial questions that I would like to see answered: first, should GAs appear on the Main Page in the first place? Second, should they appear in an existing content slot or given a new content slot? Only then (if the answer is to share an existing content slot) should we discuss how it would work in that slot. Let's take this step by step. Prioryman (talk) 21:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. Tony is, in my view, misrepresenting the level of support, which is obfuscated by having major discussions occur in more than one venue. This was done improperly, and while I support the idea of allowing GAs to also become DYKs in general, I cannot support changes being made based on these discussions. ESPECIALLY when you have an editor with such a clear and obvious bias effectively closing his own proposal in a manner that suits his own viewpoint. Do it right, Tony. Resolute 01:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2 weeks of voting and 120+ votes cast seems like enough to me warrant closing a discussion. Please don't start yet another proposal until the current ones have been resolved. I've contacted the Bureaucrats about this, so hopefully something can be worked out. I don't know what the correct protocol is for these things since I've never been involved in proposals like these, but that seemed to me like an appropriate thing to do. Calm down, everyone. Respect your fellow editors and don't attack other people.--Tea with toast (話) 02:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is the problem. There never was a definite proposal to approve or reject, methods for testing, integration, etc. Froggerlaura ^ribbit 04:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not my proposal. I'd have never worded it that way. Tony (talk) 07:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was your idea, even if you didn't put forward the specific proposal. Going forward, would you support a properly organised RfC? Prioryman (talk) 08:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I support the framing of a properly constructed RfC. What did you have in mind? Tony (talk) 08:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Complaints about the legitimacy of a well-frequented RfC should be made at its beginning, not at its end, when over 100 people have voted. ;) This looks like filibustering. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And there was I, thinking I'd had an original idea for once :p Though this sounds like a good idea.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 10:46, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I for one would love to see a properly formed RFC - there is support for doing something, but there is a real problem that any actual implementation is likely to be met with cries of "I didn't mean that!". We had two distinct discussion running at one point, with users unclear as to what was happening where. Take this as a general indication of support, but a structured RFC informed by previous debates and with multiple clear options is a really good idea before implementation - it's unlikely to overturn this discussion, I suspect, but it will make it a lot easier to move forward. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think a rerun with properly phrased options would be a good idea. In my comment I specifically did not address the issue of GAs appearing on the main page as that was not part of the question. How my response could either be included as support or opposition to a question that wasn't asked is a little beyond me. Also the conclusion that because one editor has said there is no more space on the main page means GAs have to go in the DYK slot is fundamentally flawed. A related question to raise through RfC would be, "should we increase the height of the main page to allow more content to be added?" The height of any Wikipedia page is only really limited by the consensus of the community (for the pedants, technological limitations do apply but they are for page sizes several orders of magnitude over what we have now). Road Wizard (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are other options too: for instance, if you look at the Main Page today, you'll see that the Today's Featured Picture has a huge amount of wasted space in it. One could imagine, for instance, splitting that slot and using the remaining space for a GA slot. Before anyone jumps on this, though, I'm just mentioning it to illustrate that there is a range of possible options here beyond shoehorning GAs into DYK. Prioryman (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the motivation behind this has anything to do with GAs. It is a feeling that DYK needs reform, but no-one agrees how. Secretlondon (talk) 16:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Looking at several of the "support" votes in the proposal above, the VAST majority are purely about getting GA some recognition on the main page. While, yes, there were some votes based around improving DYK, it is clear that people were voting on two separate ideas. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that highlights the problem even further. The proposer meant to ask question X, many of the commentators answered question Y, and the attempted conclusion is that the majority of the participants supported position Z. If the RfC had started with questions X, Y and Z then you could make a conclusion based on them. However, as the original question was unclear and interpreted differently by the participants, any conclusion made will be flawed. Road Wizard (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that a new RFC is inevitable and I also think that we should take some time to work out how best to phrase each question. I only ask that the "GA crowd" gets more input this time. I am strongly in that camp and dislike the feeling that we are getting shoehorned into putting GA articles onto the main page a particular way. It will bring a lot of benefits to the project, but will also display all our faults to the world and if we have some input we can try to control that. I do agree with Tony that the two RFC's taken together show some consensus for putting GAs on the main page in some form. That form is maybe not so clear. The new RFC probably needs to be structured with a general question first (should GA's be featured on the main page) and then go into details of the different ways they could be featured. AIRcorn (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I put a little draft together of some useful questions to ask before deciding whether to put GA content on the main page. Feel free to adapt it or expand on it if you want to flesh out ideas ready for a new RfC. Road Wizard (talk) 22:58, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I put together the flowchart on the right to help flesh out what needs to be discussed here. The starting point has to be whether there is a consensus for including GAs on the Main Page in the first place. If there isn't, there's no point continuing. Assuming there is, we then need to determine whether GAs should appear in their own slot or share a slot with something else. If they have their own slot, space needs to be found; we need to determine whether to make room by increasing the height of the page or splitting an existing slot (in which case we need to determine which slot). If they share a slot with something else, we need to determine which existing slot is to be adapted. Once all that is done, we need to determine the practical mechanism by which GAs end up on the Main Page, how they are selected, how often they are turned over and so on. I think this can be done through a cascading series of RfCs; the first one to get a consensus for including GAs on the Main Page and then succeeding RfCs to work through the options. Doing it stepwise like this would have the great advantage of keeping things relatively simple, so that people know what they are voting for and have a simple range of options. Prioryman (talk) 23:11, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds eminently reasonable, but obviously the place for such an RfC is not here. Many of us sympathise with the idea of having a GA slot on the Main Page - even if we don't write GAs - but seeking from the start to inject them into another section jumps several steps ahead. (And is an attack on the DYK project, not an "improvement".) I take it the earlier RfC at Main Page talk was already closed? That seems to me the most appropriate venue. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This makes no sense to me. I thought the whole point of the argument to allow GAs to be a part of DYK was to improve the quality of DYKs? This is a DYK talk page and the flow chart offers no option for improving DYKs. Where is the option on the flow chart for allowing GAs on the main page through DYK? --Tea with toast (話) 02:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "combined with an existing slot" covers this. AIRcorn (talk) 02:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another option for the chart would be to not split the existing mainpage slots and alternate DYK/other section with GA on certain days with both occupying the same spot on the page (similar to featured list). Froggerlaura ^ribbit 03:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC) (Also, is someone going to set up a proper Rfc at a single location? Prioryman's chart is a good basis. The proposal section above is growing into quite a mess and as Agne pointed out below the ultimate goals/proposals are vague.) Froggerlaura ^ribbit 04:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have thought about this some more and think there could still be issues with editors not sure what they are voting for if a stepwise RFC is launched . For example last year there was Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Main Page features#Good articles, which asked the general question "include on the Main Page in some form" and there were oppose comments like "Not worth its own section; recently approved GAs being included with DYK would be enough". There were also conditional endorses like "As part of a higher-quality DYK, not as their own section". Both equate to the same rational, yet were in two different sections. At the end we would probably end up back in the same situation we have here. It might be better to have multiple questions in the one rfc; no GA's on the main page, GA's in there own section and GA's combined with DYK (plus any others that might have a chance of succeeding), or even better, just make one detailed proposal that takes into account the objections and supports from the last few rfcs that has the best chance of passing. AIRcorn (talk) 02:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Aircorn. If this whole rigmarole is going to be redone (although I still don't understand why the current voting that continues as we speak is invalid), then we should have 1 voting period where people vote for one of those 3 options. Again, this could be complicated by people throwing out their own ideas or voting for more than one option, but I think it is better than multiple voting sessions where it is unclear what people are voting for. --Tea with toast (話) 04:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update. Hello, I don't know if the conversation about this matter has moved elsewhere in the days that I have been gone, but I'm interested to know what is up. From my count of the ongoing voting that has been taking place for more than 3 weeks, 150 votes have been cast with 91 Supports (61%) and 59 Oppose (39%). This is based strictly on those words in bold with no respect to any comments. I know since I already threw in my "Support" vote, my opinion is biased, but IMHO, that is a good majority. Can we simply agree on that or do we have to sit here and argue some more? I feel like if another poll were run, we would likely get the same result, but again, that's just my opinion. --Tea with toast (話) 03:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First of all: Wikipedia is not a democracy and these are !votes, so a 50%+ actually means no-consensus for changing the status-quo, rather than a "majority". Secondly, this RfC's inherent flaws have been well explained; and a suggestion was tabled to re-run as a serious proposal with concise and clear options rather than start it with an argumentum ad Jimbonem. Feel free to do that! Yazan (talk) 04:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As they are !votes then theoretically even less than 50% could also result in a change being enacted. In fact the more editors that comment the more confident the closer can be that the majority is a true reflection of what the community wants. A skilled editor will be able to draw some consensus out of the discussion, or at least come up with a way forward in their closing statement (I will be a little annoyed if it is just closed as no consensus with out an explanation). AIRcorn (talk) 00:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed. Frankly we don't know what the hell the result of the RfC means (see Agne's comments below) since people were voting on different things. I'll do some work in the next few days on getting a serious and properly structured RfC together. Prioryman (talk) 08:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We do know that there are a lot of editors that want to see a change of some sort. I wouldn't write it off yet, there has been a strong surge of support recently and it has a few more days to run (assuming it is closed after a month). AIRcorn (talk) 00:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Support/Oppose voters were voting on two different things

Looking at the comments in the proposal above, it is clear that no consensus can be derived from this jumbled mess because there were essentially two, very unclear, goals being put forth that each side was commenting on.
1.) Improving the DYK process
2.) Getting GAs a space on the Main Page
While nearly all of the "oppose" voters were debating the proposal based on how it accomplishes (or fails) goal #1, the "support" voters were all over the board in their reasoning, as if they were voting on separate proposals all together. Breaking down the stated reason given by the (as of this moment) 77 support votes we have:

• (32%) 25 people stating their reason for supporting the proposal is mainly about improving the DYK process
• (56%) 43 people stating their reason is to give more traffic/prominence/featuring of GA articles and to encourage editors to contribute more to the GA process, not necessary the DYK process. In fact, many of these comments don't even mention the phrase DYK once.
• (12%) 9 people who gave general support with no reason or one that was unclear

Even if you give the "unclear" people to the side whose main purpose for supporting this proposal was improving the DYK process, it is clear that the majority of people commenting in favor of this proposal are doing it from the angle of getting some recognition or encouragement of GA--regardless of its impact on DYK. This is why this proposal fails to determine any consensus because the "oppose" voters who are pushing to figure out how this proposal could actual work, making suggestions that are purely about improving DYK and expressing concerns about DYK being flooded, and the process actually hurt, by GAs, can't have these "goal #1" concerns and issues be addressed by a proposal who the majority of supporters don't seem to really care about DYK at all and just want to put forth "goal #2" of getting GAs on the main page. If there is going to be another Rfc on this matter this dichotomy over what is the purpose of the proposal will need to be sorted out. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you forgot to add Goal #3: Improve Wikipedia as a whole -- not for the ego of editors, but for the millions of readers in the world. That's what my vote went for. I think it is misleading to pigeon hole votes as to standing for one thing or another. People may actually have been voting for both goals 1&2 (&3), but just didn't take the time to write their full reasonings (after all, only the Support or Oppose is what would normally be counted, right?). I don't see how the current voting is hopelessly flawed, nor do I see how allowing a GA to go through the DYK process like any other article is unfeasible or would cause undue strain on the DYK process. --Tea with toast (話) 02:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally Goal #3 should be a de facto priority for everyone on Wikipedia and that should go without saying. Everyone wants to improve the project but How we further that goal is open to different opinions. That still doesn't negate the problem that arises when one half of the discussion is talking about apples while the other half is talking about oranges and trying to say there is consensus to make juice. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

I propose to introduce a plot exception as the plot is a retelling and is generally not encyclopedic. It is often unsourced and may be larger than the other sections. Thus I find counting the plot section as a prose is not fair. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 08:19, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we have to exclude plot, as if it is sourced, it is all good, and if not then it fails DYK anyway. My idea is to keep the rules simpler if possible, as lengthy rules make life hard for new reviewers. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Erm, double check WP:DYKSG D2: Plots don't have to be sourced with a footnote. It's the same at FAC. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I think Tomcat is talking about exempting the plot section from the prose count when calculating expansions, not the existing exemption from citation requirements. As discussed a little while ago on this page here, they're two different things. Sadly, there are many articles that while poor and improvement of them is much needed and very welcome, they are long enough that the improver can't meet the five-times expansion standard. As it says in the rules, unfortunately we can't get into evaluating other kinds of improvements to existing articles; DYK is basically for new content. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• If we are exempting the plot from sufficient citation and sourcing, then I don't see why we shouldn't exempt it from character count for DYK purposes. I would support such a proposal (if it also meant that prose section in new articles also doesn't count). Yazan (talk) 16:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I don't count plots in prose size anyway. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 19:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As the rules now stand, you should be counting it. Prose is prose, and a plot section requires prose. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. --Lexein (talk) 04:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. The plot section can easily be bloated just to reach the 5x requirement, which does not make for a good article. Also, there are some articles that are nothing but stubs with a bloated plot and no other sections. This exemption could encourage expansion of those articles. --Tea with toast (話) 04:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, plots are 500-700 words per MOS:Film. Anything >700 words is likely bloated, so I would reject DYK for plot bloat based on that, but not before. --Lexein (talk) 04:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. For same reasons sated by Tea with toast. Cbl62 (talk) 17:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

3 supports -> adding plot exception.. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 15:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• As I see this has gone live with a fairly insignificant amount of feedback, perhaps it would be best to actually indicate that this is meant to add a new rule in the section title? Perhaps start a new section? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:28, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm afraid not. This needs more discussion if you're planning to close this, and as the person who proposed it, you're the last person who should. This appeared and fell off the radar in 36 hours: to call this a consensus is not valid. If you look at the comments, Graeme Bartlett and Yngvadottir both seem to have objections, and Yazan might have supported a more restrictive version. If you want this to proceed, however, I'll formally chime in:

• Oppose: plots are perfectly valid prose text, and should be counted in existing articles that have them for DYK expansion purposes. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose: I certainly do agree with BlueMoonset that there needs to be more discussion and voting on this. It's ridiculous to change DYK rules with just three people voting either direction. Admins to ought weigh in on changing any DYK rules. There needs to be dialogue and voting by the more long-standing DYK participants, especially those who are frequent contributors. A big question comes to my mind: Wouldn't Shubinator have to reprogram the DYK Check to accommodate skipping the plot in the count? At the very least, we need an opinion from Shubinator on that technicality. If DYK Check is used, how do you tell it to skip parts of an article? Too confusing to have a reviewer use the DYK Check for the article, then some other method to figure out the plot section, and subtract that from the DYK Check count. Even more confusing would be the scenario of having DYK Check dis-allowed for articles with a Plot - and expect anybody but the experienced reviewers to even know about that. This subject needs way, way more discussion. — Maile (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tomcat7 had also put in a request for a change to DYKcheck when he declared consensus and added 3d; I asked Shubinator to hold off until a consensus had been reached. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My personal experience with asking Shubinator to do something (I don't remember what I requested), is that Shubinator would post on this talk page about it. Let's hope Shubinator continues that way. — Maile (talk) 16:26, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From a technical perspective, it shouldn't be too difficult to find the "Plot" section (if it exists), calculate that section's prose count, and subtract it off from the total. However, nominators could easily fool the script by tweaking the section name (like "Plot summary"), or just not putting it in a separate section. Shubinator (talk) 02:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Plot already has one exemption - from the referencing requirement - and there is no compelling reason to give it a further one. There are enough one- and two-line articles and missing articles to provide topics for those who want their work to be Did You Know eligible, and work on those is more useful to the encyclopedia - or other alternatives are to choose a work where there has been enough discussion that the article can still be expanded fivefold even though the plot counts toward the prose length, or to go for GA instead. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The problem with low quality articles containing large blocks of unsourced or poorly soured text is not confined to just subjects with plots. Why should we grant articles about fictional topics any more indulgences than they already receive? Subjects dealing with the music, art, history, politics, religion, science, and technology are as important to the encyclopedia as books, films, and other forms of story telling. Combine this fairness concern with the technical and logistical problems listed above and there is no reason to make this change. --Allen3 ^talk 19:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose The whole in-universe vs. out-of-universe thing is a high-level style issue to consider, as many others. It is right to require it from developed articles, but a bit excessive with new ones. We may, however, reformulate the proposal, and reject DYK candidates that contain only a plot section. Besides, I don't know the others, but I check prose size with a script that filters lists; if the rules change that script should be modified accordingly. Cambalachero (talk) 20:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe plot-only articles should be approved for DYK under the current rules, as that would seem to violate rule D7 of WP:DYKSG. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Plot-only articles are literally "stub-class", which are already excluded from DYK. Aren't they? --Lexein (talk) 04:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Plots, integrated into the prose or not, are parts of "Start"-class film, book, TV show and play articles. A "Start"-class, "C"-class, or "B"-class article, per the guidelines for whatever WikiProject(s) it is part of, should be the minimum for DYK. For film, "Stub"-class means missing production, release, reception/recognition, or plot sections, and should not be promoted by DYK for public display. Plots are required for such articles, so DYK should not disregard that requirement, or fail to count expansion, up to the limits imposed by that project. Example: MOS:Film, specifically WP:Filmplot imposes a maximum of 700 words for plot sections, preferring shorter ones. Articles which bloat plot beyond that can be summarily rejected for DYK as not meeting their WikiProject specifications. No extra rule is required within DYK for this. --Lexein (talk) 04:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My/our Marrakech article has been rejected from DYK based on the petty five day five times expansion "rule" even though it was cut to 8kb and ended up over 100kb. This article had more work put into it that many DYKs put together. 5 times is exceptionally difficult for top importance articles which are already most likely long and need an injection of quality. The five times does nothing to measure quality. I believe articles designated "top importance" articles which are high priority to develop, we need to be encouraging editors to expand them and nominate for DYK, not do the opposite and encourage them to reject core articles because they won't be long enough for DYK.I propose that we reduce the expected expansion for CORE articles to x 2 with sound sourcing and encourage editors to improve the more important articles without punishing them over petty rules.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 10:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I would be in favour of that but in my opinion, just allowing it for top importance (according to their wikiprojects) leads to a fairly limited scope. Most top importance articles are already a good size and would be very hard to even 2x expand. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 12:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regretfully - because I can imagine how much work went into that article improvement - I don't think there's a compelling enough need for this. The determination of what's a core-importance article is very subjective and the concept doesn't take into account the clustering of articles that is one aspect of this being an on-line encyclopaedia rather than a hard copy in which one has to thumb one's way to a related article, and which gives topics even fuzzier boundaries than in a traditional encyclopaedia. Also, if it's already so long and thorough that it's hard to expand it considerably, then isn't improving such an article what GA and FA recognition are for? There are still so many genuine stubs - and missing articles - and the BLP exemption is an anachronism going back to the BLP referencing push; with the current requirement that new BLP articles be referenced or deleted within a week, I think they can reasonably be submitted as new articles and would rather see that exemption removed than a new one added. --Yngvadottir (talk) 13:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's true, but why not showcase them as DYKs? Its almost as if you're saying "articles can be too good for DYKs". Core/top importance articles yes it might be fuzzy in places but I think generally there are articles most would consider top importance. Some stream in Bavaria is obviously not as important as the article on Bavaria or Frankfurt or something.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Top importance ratings are very subjective and also depend upon the scope of the project. For example, Gateway of India is Wikipedia: WikiProject Mumbai, high for Wikipedia:WikiProject Maharashtra, mid for Wikipedia:WikiProject India. Will Gateway of India be eligible for 2X? --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 13:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would consider it a high importance article, not top importance, core would be Mumbai of course. Yet we do have article importance ratings so obviously some people consider them worthy.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support having Vital articles sharing the same level of importance as BLPs, and dropping the requirement to 2x expansion to encourage people to work on them. But I agree that "top" importance articles for various Wikiprojects is a bit subjective. Marrakech is listed as a level 4 vital article, so it would qualify. Of course, the other way to work around this would be to promote the article to GA, and then have it be eligible for DYK if the current vote is allowed to pass.... In any case, impressive work on the Marrakech expansion, Dr. Blofeld. Kudos! --Tea with toast (話) 03:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo said last night that in his view, there ought to be a five-year moratorium on Gibraltar DYKs on the main page. Is it time to revisit the decision to keep running Gibraltar hooks at a frequency of up to one a day? AndreasKolbe JN466 14:52, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid Jimbo speaks for himself at the moment and his views have no bearing on the runnings of DYK. But since you feel so strongly about, go ahead and call for a community-wide RFC. Yazan (talk) 14:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) A five year moratorium on a subject at DYK is just a flat-out terrible idea. At the end of the day, the hooks are all connected to articles of a standard we should be celebrating; if every town had this depth of coverage we'd be over the moon. I'd be against any further limiting of the hooks being run, and frankly this notion that there's something inherently wrong with running solid material should be allowed to die down and go away so we can focus those same efforts on actually doing some constructive editing and not prohibiting that of others. GRAPPLE X 14:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think 5 years is a bit excessive. I think we should just keep a limit of 1 a day until the whole Gibraltarpedia thing goes away. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not disputing that there's been some legitimate issues with GibraltarpediA etal. I'm not defending the idea of incentives to get an article on the front page. I'm concerned about the precedent being set at DYK. Each nomination/article needs to be taken on its own merit. Anything else is profiling, and some good editors get passed just because they happened to pick the wrong topic of the moment. Today the wrong topic of the moment is Gibraltar. Tomorrow? Next month? Next year? — Maile (talk) 15:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Competitions involving DYK should be discontinued. They leave Wikipedia wide open to abuse. AndreasKolbe JN466 15:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mean like the WikiCup? I'm afraid some people will always be competitive. (We have all sorts of clean-up drives that can be used to illustrate the point.) I believe your objection is to externally sponsored competitions? Yngvadottir (talk) 16:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I mean anything centred on a particular topic. By all means, have competitions, but don't flood the main page with related DYKs all about one topic, given the potential for abuse. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose No, there has been more than enough discussion of this and it's now overdone. So far this week there seem to have been just two Gibraltar related DYKs. Currently, a stronger DYK theme seems to be frogs as lately we've had the following:

1. bird-voiced treefrog;
2. pine woods treefrog;
3. desert rain frog;
4. horned marsupial frog;
5. Mazumbai warty frog;
6. Krefft's warty frog;
7. Bombay night frog;
8. humming frog;
9. colostethus palmatus;
10. colostethus agilis;
11. common rocket frog;
12. colostethus stepheni;
13. Jog night frog

Is this plague of frogs a problem? I'm not seeing it. These are all reasonable topics and there's not so many of them that a casual reader would notice or care. Agitating about this seems mainly to be a campaign to drive away productive editors and so is not acceptable behaviour. Warden (talk) 16:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The frogs are not reporting in the press that they are operating a low-cost marketing campaign to promote their habitat as a tourist product through Wikipedia. You may feel this difference does not matter, but I disagree with you. AndreasKolbe JN466 17:07, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Then the articles being nominated need more inspection as to avoid advertising. That's really simple and a basic requirement of all articles, regardless of whether they feature at DYK or not. Something that anyone can address. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't understand what product placement is. Product placement means simply that you see the product, or hear it mentioned (in this case, the tourist product being marketed is Gibraltar). The typical example is a drinks can seen in a movie scene. If Pepsi pays, it will be a Pepsi can. If Coca Cola pay, it will be a Coke can. AndreasKolbe JN466 00:59, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

it is worth noting that WikiFur engages in product placement on Wikipedia. their logo is seen on 135 Wikipedia pages. product placement is nothing new on Wikipedia. 66.87.71.13 (talk) 05:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whipping post

I see that we have another article up right now — Main Guard. This seems quite respectable and a good ornament for the encyclopedia. The only issue I find with it is that the hook might have made more of the following fact:- 'on the Parade, was a "whipping post, where almost every day soldiers are brought to feel the scourge."' It sounds just like this page, where DYK editors are regularly brought to be flogged... Warden (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RfC format

Let's do this as an RfC, then. I propose two options:

1. I support a ban on Gibraltar DYKs (please indicate length, and any limitations to be observed after expiry)
2. I support Gibraltar DYKs continuing (please indicate a maximum rate, like 1 a day, 1 a week, etc.)

Do those options sound okay? AndreasKolbe JN466 15:23, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I was coming here to start an RFC; you beat me to it. I had in mind the single question, Should there be a moratorium? (indicating suggested length) but your suggestion would do as well. It needs to be simple to avoid getting sidetracked like the previous discussions. JohnCD (talk) 15:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We could offer the following as background reading:

• Recent press coverage is summarised in Gibraltarpedia#Controversies
• Discussion on Jimbo's talk
• The recent threads about Gibraltar hooks here on this page (and in recent archives of this page) AndreasKolbe JN466 16:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's already been a DYK project discussion. You evidently feel that's insufficient, but it should at least be linked to, and not merely at secondhand through all the discussions here that linked to it. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean the Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/GibraltarPediA_Options subpage? If so, we might have to include two versions: the current one, and this one. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Impose a temporary moratorium on Gibraltar DYK's (specify for how long).
• Impose common sense in allowing COI's to impact Wikipedia content, including on the main page and in DYK's, such as Gibraltarisms.

Something like that? Apteva (talk) 16:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• • Are you kidding with this? Common sense to me is to stop encouraging the promotional behavior that has served to discredit this project. This is not a question of how we treat COI in general, this is a question about Gibraltar, which is an exceptional case that should not be used for any precedent. Gigs (talk) 16:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's format this properly then: --AndreasKolbe JN466 16:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gibraltar hooks RfC

Should Wikipedia continue to run DYK hooks on the main page, and if so, at what rate? Or should there be a complete moratorium on them, and if so, of what length?

Background reading

• Discussions on Jimbo's talk page: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Gibraltar.2C_again, User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Gibraltar_hooks_RfC
• Recent press coverage is summarised in Gibraltarpedia#Controversy
• Previous DYK project discussion on how to handle the Gibraltar hooks: Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/GibraltarPediA_Options (prior discussion)
• Recent threads about Gibraltar hooks here on this page (and in recent archives of this page)
• The contest that is prompting many of the submissions

Ongoing media coverage

• "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales Breaks Silence On Resurgence Of Promotional Scandal", The Daily Dot, 25 October 2012
• "Wales: Let's ban Gibraltar-crazy Wikipedians for 5 years – Too bad you're not the boss, Jimbo", The Register, 26 October 2012
• "Las manipulaciones mediáticas: construirse una audiencia a toda costa o el shock del público web", Forum LIbertas, 29 October 2012
• "Wikipedia founder wades into Gibraltar row", The Olive Press, 2 November 2012

Comments on scope

Note that some proponents of this moratorium also wish to indefinitely ban DYK hooks about the topics relating to the areas of Morocco and Spain that are within about 70 km of Gibraltar (a total area of about 2,000 square kilometres (770 sq mi) in addition to Gibraltar's 6.2 square kilometres (2.4 sq mi)), as depicted in the map below, whether or not they have any connection with Gibraltar.[2]

Comment: the paragraph above, added by Prioryman, should not be allowed to confuse the issue, because (a) nobody is talking about "indefinitely" banning anything, that is just hype, and (b) despite Andreas' comment which is linked, the RfC as written says "Gibraltar hooks" and that is what people are voting on. JohnCD (talk) 22:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kolbe clearly says below "no Gibraltar- or Gibraltarpedia-related nominations" and has explicitly said that he intends the ban to cover southern Spain and northern Morocco as well.[[3]] Kolbe also gives no timeframe for his proposed restrictions - they're indefinite. Prioryman (talk) 22:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

JohnCD is correct, and you are lying. I am advocating a one-year ban, not an indefinite ban. Note that this is considerably more moderate than Jimbo's suggestion of a five-year-ban. AndreasKolbe JN466 00:46, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Prioryman, are you a member of the WMUK board??? (2) Who the f framed that RfC below? Again, walk back from possible results and think about whether they'll be actionable. Why frame it so that everyone splats ink all over the place? That's a gift to those who want it to fail. Well done. You provide specific solutions and ask for a yes or no for each. Pffff. Tony (talk) 01:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why on earth do you think I'm a board member? Do you see me listed at [4]? Prioryman (talk) 06:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support a ban on Gibraltar DYKs (please indicate length, and any limitations to be observed after expiry)

1. Support moratorium until December 26 as I've said previously, I support suspending the acceptance of applications for Gibraltar DYKs until the contest is over, after which they could be resubmitted without meeting the normal time sensitive requirements of DYK. I do not believe we should be accepting applications and holding them during the moratorium. Gigs (talk) 16:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
2. One-year ban, which means no Gibraltar- or Gibraltarpedia-related nominations are accepted for the main page for one year after the end of this RfC. Thereafter limit Gibraltarpedia topics to one main page DYK a month. No further Gibraltarpedia hooks on the main page while this RfC is ongoing. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:50, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support ban don't add any hooks in relation to Gibraltar to the main page until the issue is at full resolution, at the very least. Obviously if this is resolved within a month, the extra four years and eleven months Jimbo suggested are excessive, but until the controversy surrounding it dissipates completely, adding hooks could be very bad. After the issue is moot and we start introducing them again, make it once a week as a limit thereafter. A potential of 52 Gibraltar-related hooks a year is enough given the controversy. Once a day for a potential 365 a year is absurd for any topic. There are so many topics on Wikipedia non-Gibraltar related, find some of them and add them as a hook. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 16:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support one-year moratorium, then max one/week. In order not to discourage contributors, the competition could continue, with the organizers assessing articles according to DYK criteria and awarding points, prizes, trip to Gib etc; but they don't appear on the main page. JohnCD (talk) 17:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
5. For one year, with apologies to the various innocent Gibraltar authors caught in the crossfire. This will give time for Jimbo's independent review to put WMUK out of business and hopefully allow a charity to rise from its ashes. It will also serve as an important caution to any other groups interested in buying product placement on the main page: The consultants you're negotiating with can't sell what they don't WP:OWN. Kilopi (talk) 18:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support until December 26 as well as a form of a compromise position. Kansan (talk) 18:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support one year ban Clearly communicates the consequences of attempting to buy placement on Wikipedia, deterring future attempts. DYK is not so important that committed editors cannot do without it for a year. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC) I was contacted to ask whether I supported a ban on non-Gibraltar southern Spain/north Morocco, and I would not support that ban. I can't imagine that the tourist board of Gibraltar in any way benefits from those articles, and readers would be extremely unlikely to associate them with Gibraltarpedia, so any wider ban would not serve its deterrent purpose. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Why not just review DYKs and comment accordingly? The same rules should apply throughout, right? If it's POV or advert, then mark it as such, and move on. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Each individual article or hook may be fine, but you can still get a promotional effect by an organised campaign to push articles and DYKs on a particular theme. JohnCD (talk) 23:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   I must say like you Jen or anybody voting support I resent the thought of paid editing and that we are being used for somebody else's gain. However, I look at it simply as none of these articles actually contain serious POV, and are largely historical in nature, are we better off with articles like Moorish Gibraltar or not? Would you rather that such articles were added to wikipedia or not? I'd rather have them than not, every article is another piece in the jigsaw. And if it is a tourist promotion using DYK is an exceedingly poor way of promoting it, given million editors visiting the main page a day and 1500 tops visiting the DYKs. If in the long term it does generate interest in Gibraltar through the articles existing it shouldn't matter anyway as its a win win situation. Commercial evils or not, projects like Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia are producing results and generating editorial interests, for the right or wrong reasons. I look at this neutrally at face value and I say that the importance of DYK is being grossly exaggerated and that the articles, especially given the vigorous reviewing are not harmful to us as a resource, quite the opposite. However, I must say that we are in danger of having a little too excessive coverage.... ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:23, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   One of the bad effects of such touristic Glam projects is that they attract an excessive number of already established editors who for some reason switch their attention from other topics to (in this case) Gibraltar topics (completely or partially). Considering that these projects aren't even for the most undercovered or poorly covered areas (Africa, Asia, ...) but for English speaking, Western cities, they only result in strengthening the systemic bias Wikipedia already has; something which, if not actually corrected, at least shouldn't be supported by Wikimedia or any chapters or other affiliated organisations. Opposing DYKs created in the wake of such Glam projects is one way of reducing the impact of the project and of sending a message that many editors do not support such projects in any way. Perhaps, perhaps, this will make people think twice before proceeding with further Wikitourist cities or regions. Fram (talk) 13:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Quite. And note that the Chepstow property developer who sponsored the "Excellence in Marketing" business award that Monmouthpedia won hopes that Chepstowpedia will be the next project; and that WMUK approved such a plan. AndreasKolbe JN466 15:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   That is another way to look at it, yes, third world countries are unlikely to start such projects. I would hope though that such project might attract new editors to the project. Me, I'd like to see localised projects in every country of the world geared towards producing content..♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:21, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

8. Support a ban on Gibraltarpedia DYKs until the end of the promotion, and a ban on similar marketing driven projects. We need to deter product placement on the front page - this project is not for sale. This needs decisive action to put a stop to it as it is utterly unacceptable. Secretlondon (talk) 20:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support one year banI am not sure what part of "It isn't Wikipedia's job to support a commercial endeavour" people in favour of continuing Gib mentions on DYK don't understand. It is a marketing campaign, ladies and gentleman, and the fact that only one volunteer will be "paid" with a trip to Gib is not relevant when User:Victuallers and Co are being paid/have been paid to ensure the presence of Gib on the main page. And look how well they have succeeded, with our unpaid, apparently unwitting, help! Bielle (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   So prevent advertising from being present on any article in Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Main page placement, even of neutral articles, is advertising. That is precisely why this project was created. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

10. Support one year ban per the commercial endeavour argument. Hestiaea (talk)

    Question all these people trying to "ban" these articles, how does it fit into the current DYK framework? How can you object to verifiably referenced articles appearing on the main page? If you think there's a POV/advertising issue, presumably you'd all object to the DYK on that basis? If there's an POV/advertising issue, presumably you'd all annotate the offending articles with suitable maintenance tags? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    The advertising is the mere appearance of the the name of Gibraltar or any of its constituent attractions on the main page and in multiple articles throughout WP, which is what the Tourist Board and/or related ministries have paid User:Victuallers to effect. As someone said n another discussion of this matter, it's called product placement, and even just a mention of the name or a link to it is enough to qualify as advertising. Bielle (talk) 21:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC) And, before anyone else jumps all over this, there are no doubt quite legitimate articles, neither bloated nor insufficiently referenced, coming out of the marketing plan. What the tourist board should not be able to buy is placement on the main page of WP; that is what is happening with DYK at the moment Bielle (talk) 21:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    But that argument is completely bogus. The Government of Gibraltar has employed Victuallers to provide consultancy and training. He's not writing articles, nor is he nominating anything for the Main Page. The tourist board not only does not have the ability to "buy placement", it's not made any attempt to do so, directly or indirectly. I've nominated various articles for the Main Page, and I've done so purely on the basis of their being good-quality articles, with points of interest, and with interesting hooks suggested by myself. Nobody's asked me or prompted me to do so. Your argument is essentially one of assumed bad faith. Prioryman (talk) 21:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    So who paid for your trip to Gibraltar? Don't you feel we are entitled to know? Carrite (talk) 21:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    No, you're not entitled to know, my private life is my own business. You have no basis to suppose that anyone other than me paid for my trip, which I'd planned months before I'd even heard of Gibraltarpedia. (Note that I started Wikipedia:WikiProject Gibraltar over five years ago.) Prioryman (talk) 21:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Let's look at the facts: Victuallers used to take an active part in getting Gibraltarpedia DYK articles on the front page, and did it so insistently that he attracted criticism from Panyd and others. He has now dropped all involvement with the DYK process for Gibraltarpedia articles. What you are doing now is very similar to what he used to do before the matter became a scandal, and you too are doing it so energetically that it has attracted criticism, even from people on your own side. [5][6][7] You started energetically advocating for DYK hooks to return to the main page as soon as you came back from Gibraltar, where you, Roger and John had hoped to meet and, I presume, did meet. AndreasKolbe JN466 02:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

11. Support ban - One year minimum. Without calling into question the specific motives of any of the individual article writers, there is clearly a unwholesome promotional aspect at the root of this onslaught of DYK articles — and it is damaging the reputation of the project. Placement of this sort of systematic machinegunning of mainpage links has been highly valued (in cash terms) by at least one PR professional. There is inadequate supervision of the DYK approval process and the de facto Gibraltar spamming of the mainpage needs to stop at once. Carrite (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support ban for one year minimum. Regardless of the fact that there is no paid editing going on and regardless that many people have participated in Gibraltarpedia in good faith, the effect has been spamming of DYK. TheOverflow (talk) 22:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support ban. First choice is one year. Second choice is until December 26 or the end of the contest (such as if they decided to extend the deadline), whichever comes last. Cla68 (talk) 22:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question if articles fail to meet our inclusion criteria, i.e. fail to meet our policies, ostensibly WP:V, WP:N, WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, then they shouldn't be included on the main page. Worse, they should be removed from Wikipedia. This whole claim of "unwholesomeness" etc seems entirely pointless, if individual articles fail to meet the requirements, then they shouldn't be featured. If they meet the criteria and you don't like the criteria, deal with it and comment on the criteria. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

      Maybe one of the criteria should be "not generated because of a known, paid publicity push to get said content on the main page" or "not detrimental to Wikipedia's image because they evidence the success of paid marketing campaigns to influence Wikipedia's main page content" or "not providing evidence to future marketers that they too can game Wikipedia's rules to get exposure for their products". Because that's what I'm objecting to. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

14. Weak support for ban on Gibraltarpedia-related articles until the contest ends. I'm a bit surprised to find myself in this column, because I tend to be one of the people around here more willing to work with COI/paid editors, but I think Gibraltarpedia presents a significantly larger amount of potential damage than the occasional PR employee who wants to edit an article. There are a couple of elements at play here, all partially outweighing one another, which is why I'm calling my vote a "weak" support.

    First, we have the issue of what is basically product placement. Gibraltar is paying (if not with prizes, with the opportunity for prizes) well-meaning people to put stuff about their "product" on the front page of Wikipedia. That's bad, and it is more bad, at least to my mind, than someone just wanting people to write or edit an article they're COI on. It's the difference between a movie scene shot in a grocery store, where you might catch a glimpse of a can of Coke, and a scene where a character holds the can up to the camera, takes a big swig, and says, "Ahhh, COKE!" Product placement of this sort has no place on Wikipedia, full-stop.

    Second, we have the issue of non-disclosure. This compounds the product placement issue, because while internet users are somewhat used to overlooking "sponsored" content, non-disclosure of the "sponsoredness" of the content takes away their choice of whether to allow someone to profit off their eyeballs. There is no separation on the main page to indicate "these are volunteer-created random articles" vs "these are articles created by volunteers trying to win a prize worth cash money by promoting a topic", and that's even worse than basic product placement.

    At the same time, however, we have the fact that I believe that no one involved in this disaster expected it to be disastrous, controversial, or potentially damaging. I think all parties thought it was a good thing for all sides - Wikipedia gets content that meets our standards, Gibraltar gets publicity, users get to have fun. No one is disputing that the authors of the articles, especially, were doing something they thought benefited Wikipedia, not laughing behind their hands at secretly screwing us. I suspect that even the organizers, though they were obviously profiting from this association, didn't think they were doing it in an unethical manner. No one's really done anything like this before (that we know of?), and the first people off the starting block would be the ones who discover the massive hole in the middle of the track. We can't hold it entirely against people for trying something new, and for that reason I oppose a punitive "sit in the time-out chair and think about what you've done wrong" approach that bans these hooks for a random amount of time to make an example of Gibraltar/Victuallers.

    On the other other hand, however, I'm flat-out unwilling to be welcoming to future campaigns that pay (or bribe, or subsidize, or reward) Wikipedians to purposely load our main page with for-profit articles. As I said above, we don't do product placement, and product placement by any other name is still product placement. If people want to write articles about Gibraltar out of the goodness of their hearts and put them up for DYK, they can. But as long as they're producing articles as part of a product placement contest, they're going to have to live with choosing either the main page or potential profit. So let's start that with Gibraltarpedia. If you want to participate in the GBP contest, whether because it's fun or because you're hoping to win, cool. Have fun and be productive, and be sure to follow our policies! But while you're participating in a contest like this, articles you produce for that contest shouldn't eligible for DYK or other mainpage placement. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

15. Support a ban until at least the contest is over, per Fluffernutter. I have given my view on Gibraltarpedia in the MfD. That Gibraltarpedia is happily trotting along in spite of the massively scandalous publicity that this has drawn and the many concerns by good faith editors is ridiculous. Unless the community is willing to sit down and have a proper debate about COI, paid editing and outreach, drastic measures like this will have to be taken. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support SOME kind of moratorium. Not 5 years (way too many people are taking Jimmy literally here, he was obviously trying to make a point - the situation that has evolved IS indeed bad), but at the minimum until the promotion ends plus one month. Usually when a scandal erupts people STOP doing what it was that caused the scandal, not do it even more. And you can weasel it any way you want, but Gibraltar related DYKs on the front page are paid for promotion, end of story. Volunteer Marek  00:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support a ban, per arguments above; one year sounds about right. bridies (talk) 00:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support a limit of two per month under the current, sick, DYK arrangements. In fact, two per month for any topic, to be policed by admins and subject to community scrutiny. Tony (talk) 01:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support ban for a year at least. Per above arguments. Corruption. Bad publicity. Bad for volunteer paradigm. Slippery slope ("Did you know... that in Dear Leader Kim Jong-il's only golf game, he scored 11 holes-in-one over 18 holes?") Herostratus (talk) 01:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support one-year ban, broadly construed. Gibralter has had its place in the sun. AutomaticStrikeout 03:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
21. Per Fluffernutter and Volunteer Marek. May be a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but no point leaving it open. AIRcorn (talk) 04:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    There are other horses. Recall that Roger "picked Gibraltar... as his next project after being flooded with invitations from places around the world", and if he gets away with this there will be others ready to take up the idea. An important reason for stopping this now is (switching metaphors) to nip in the bud the idea that advertisers can achieve product placement on the main page by paying consultants to run projects like this one. JohnCD (talk) 08:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

22. Support ban (until the end of the GLAM project promoting Gibraltar and its surroundings). Would support a similar ban for any other touristicgeographically inspired GLAM project like Monmouthpedia, Chepstowpedia, or the thankfully dormant Wikipedia:Mexico-US cross border project, which proudly states "The goal of this project is to promote Mexican culture and identity[...]", supported by User:FloNight, whose user page states that the editor is "helping the Wikimedia Foundation design the new Fund Dissemination Committee that will be responsible for distributing most non-core money. I would love to hear your ideas about the way that WMF community members can best participate in the process of evaluating funding requests." My "idea" is: no support, encouragement, exposure, or money for any promotional project. Fram (talk) 08:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support Ban Until competition is ended, limit to one per week thereafter. Ideally with the extra review measures still in place. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:49, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support ban until at least the end of the competition (26th December) and ideally at least three months after that to 1st April 2012. After that, a limit of one DYK article per month covering Gibraltar for a period of 12 months, and then review the situation. We don't want to discourage content creation, and most of this content has been rather good. But I am aghast at Wikipedia's approach of dropping the Gibraltar articles briefly (while everyone was watching) and then starting up again with articles when the heat died down a little. This is clearly poor practice, and there should be some modest punitive element put in place. Shritwod (talk) 12:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support ban this COI isn't good for Wikipedia. Think 3 months is pretty reasonable (this is a very small part of the world and not having an DYK article on it for 3 months isn't outrageous) but could accept something shorter (Dec 26th is reasonable) or longer (a year seems too long, but acceptable if needed). Maybe 1/week after that? Hobit (talk) 12:46, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support ban This whole thing is a disgrace. There shouldn't be any more of these articles on the Main Page for at least one year. After that, there should be a limit of one Gibraltar DYK a month for another year. After that, review the situation. --Vrave98 (talk) 15:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Why is Moorish Gibraltar a disgrace? Why would it be a disgrace to put that historical, well-written article on the front page? ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

27. Support two-month moratorium (from the last hook) and no more than one every two months thereafter for two years. (You could look at that as no moratorium at all, just a "slowing down", but then I wasn't sure what category to put this in.) There should also be a more comprehensive review and discussion of whether there is "DYK abuse" outside of this one area, and discussion of possible solutions. Neutron (talk) 16:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support ban for one year. There is no amount of talk of it all being a clean process that will make it appear to be clean. The insiders say it's all a fun game? An outsider sees a polluted pool. You have a broken process - take a year of referencing what you can't do to think about what you should do. Shenme (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
29. Support ban for one year. This product placement contest for the main page is a disgrace. --Atlasowa (talk) 21:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support ban for at least one year. Full ACK to User:Atlasowa.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
31. Support ban 1 year sounds good. Among other things this topic has undue weight in DYK (and elsewhere) and should get a rest for a while. (I also want to get rid of DYK altogether but that's another topic). I'm disappointed that nobody expanded the stub about the dramatic masterpiece The Guns of Abalone, which is set partly on Gibraltar. But if you do it, please don't file a DYK. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 00:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support ban until at least the report of the Independent Review of Wikimedia UK is published. The number of Gibraltar DYKs has been more than appropriate for an entire year. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:09, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    What on earth does the review have to do with it? Gibraltarpedia isn't a WMUK project as far as I know and WMUK themselves have said that the only support they've provided has been to run off about £20 worth of photocopied guides to editing Wikipedia for distribution to Gibraltarians. There's no connection at all between WMUK and Gibraltar DYKs. Prioryman (talk) 03:17, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    "The review will establish a full account of the recent events related to QRpedia, Monmouthpedia, Gibraltarpedia and related conflicts of interest." Whether or not WMUK and its trustees, current and former, have acted improperly, is a matter for the review to determine. I think English Wikipedia should not ignore the fact that WMF forced this unprecedented review on WMUK because of the controversy surrounding "Gibraltarpedia". The review will have access to the private records of WMUK, which means they are best placed to resolve the controversy and allow everyone to get back to business as usual. I am sorry that you feel otherwise. Up to you. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:37, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for the explanation. I still don't get it though, I'm afraid. This discussion is about whether Gibraltar-related DYKs should appear on the Main Page. How is that connected to how the project has been organised, which is what I gather the review will be looking at (among other things)? Nobody in the WMUK management chain is involved in writing Gibraltar-related articles or sending them to DYK and WMUK certainly aren't pulling the strings behind the scenes. If the review determines that there was a COI involved in the way Victuallers set up Gibraltarpedia, what is the relevance of that here given that he's not involved with DYKs in any way? Your comments imply that you see the future of these DYKs as dependent on the outcome of the review. Would that be a fair conclusion? Prioryman (talk) 04:14, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry but your 'conclusion' is way off base. Intentionally so, I presume, given your constant aggressive behaviour regarding this project.

    My opinion is that the front page should not have Gibraltar articles on it while Gibraltarpedia is under review. I am happy to presume innocence of everyone involved until the review is published, and I have no doubts at all that everyone involved was trying to act in the best interest of the Wikimedia movement. However a DYK moratorium is a simple and effective way to reduce the profile of this project while it is under review, and avoids the possibility that Wikipedia will end up receiving additional bad press due to Gibraltarpedia. I think Roger has made a very smart step by removing 'front page' from the competition, but continuing to apply the DYK criteria.

    If we do nothing, Wikipedia would look very silly by allowing excessive amounts of Gibraltarpedia-related content onto the front page for months after the WMF forced WMUK to undergo a review, if (for e.g.) the review conclusion is that (e.g. worst case) Gibraltarpedia was a for-profit spun out of a non-profit, with the non-profit referring/deferring potential clients to the for-profit preferentially while the for-profit has a member on the board of the non-profit.

    The review will not cover Wikipedia policies or guidelines, and our policies and guidelines wouldnt be based on the review, but there is a need for Wikipedia to grow from this experience. I personally think 17 a month for Gibraltar is too much, but it would be OK if it was once off. However people like yourself are advocating that we keep putting excessive amounts of Gibraltarpedia content on the front page, which is poking the bear. There are backlogs and injecting lots of Gibraltar DYKs doesnt help especially when the Gibraltarpedia people are cross nominating each others DYKs thereby avoiding QPQ reviews. I hear a lot of DYK people saying there are other similar bursts of DYKs about narrow subjects, and I would like to see more analysis of that. I would like to see some analysis, reflection and improvement before we unleash Gibraltarpedia onto the front page. If you want my support, how about helping by doing some of that analysis. If the DYKers are right, you should be able to construct datasets like Wikipedia:GLAM/GibraltarpediA/DYKs showing that Gibraltarpedia is not unusual and dont improperly imbalance the overall front page balancing act. Show me the statistics.. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • I notice there's yet another gosh darn Frog article in DYK! μηδείς (talk) 03:21, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I endorse John Vandenberg's comment. Tony (talk) 07:17, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • We've also just now had Tibúrcio Spannocchi, who is in Category:People associated with Gibraltar, and Gibraltar Peak on the main page at the same time. Of course, the Gibraltar Peak described in Laura Hale's article is in Australia (cough), and it's got nothing to do with Gibraltarpedia. AndreasKolbe JN466 11:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • What's the "cough" mean? Is that your next proposal to be attempted by underhand tactics - a ban on DYKs relating to Australia? You may be doing OK so far with targeting a slice of Africa, but I'll doubt you'll manage a ban on the whole of Africa, or even Australia, no matter what tactics you stoop to. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
33. One year - the damage to Wikipedia is already great and we have to react to this promotion affair. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 2:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
34. Support ban until promotion is over and also a ban on similar marketing driven projects.The project and in particular main page is not for sale. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 03:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support: I agree with Eingangskontrolle. A 1 year ban would be a good thing as it appears that even limiting the amount of Gibraltar DYKs is still fuelling the media fire and causing more damage than they're worth. I was originally in favour of the current system but after reading that article above, it would be best to ban outright for a year as it is harming Wikipedia by the way it is protrayed and certain users are at risk of slurs and speculations as a result. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 08:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    It's worth pointing out that what you call "the media fire" is being deliberately generated by Jayen466, who has been giving hostile briefings to the press, including passing on Jimbo's private communications. Jimbo is not at all happy about this. See [8]. Prioryman (talk) 08:34, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I see. Well if the coverage is coming from a user deliberately leaking information to the press, that is indded changing the ball game. It does bear thinking about but I think the problem is that while it's still in the public mind, it's worth starving the main part of oxygen by stopping it making the main page. Prioryman, the reason I said what I said was because that Register article mentioned you by name and was clearly trying to make assumptions of who you are and I was concerned. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:18, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    What do you mean by leaking? Everything that happens on this site is public. How do you think all the positive articles about Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia got into the press? People wrote press releases about what was happening, and sent them to the media. I wrote a blog post, and it ended up quoted by two journalists. AndreasKolbe JN466 03:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I was referring to the bit where Prioryman said that Jimbo's private messages were passed on to the press. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 08:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    The background is that there was a previous discussion at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options in which a proposed moratorium was unanimously opposed and a regime was agreed to handle Gibraltar-related DYKs, including giving them two reviews to scrutinise them for COI/promotion, restricting them to no more than one daily and putting them in a special holding area. This was put into effect. Kolbe disagreed with this outcome and mounted an off-wiki campaign, including giving Jimbo's private correspondence to journalists with a past history of criticising Wikipedia. He started this discussion, deliberately generated bad publicity, then used the bad publicity that he had generated to support his case in this discussion. There was no ongoing media coverage about this until Kolbe deliberately went out and generated it in order to influence this discussion. It all comes across as very manipulative and underhand. Prioryman (talk) 08:37, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Prioryman, his name is Andreas. Do you have proof of these allegations you're bandying about? (Even if you did, your protestations would be a diversion of the main issue that concerns most of us.) May I say that you're becoming well known as aggressive, on this page and others. Could you tone it down, please? Tony (talk) 09:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I wrote a blog post for Wikipediocracy and made journalists who had previously covered the story aware of it, and of the fact that Gibraltar main page appearances had resumed. Two of them were interested enough to cover it. There is nothing underhand about this: it's no different from sending out press releases about how wonderful Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia are.

    Jimbo sent me an e-mail with the text and subject line quoted on his talk page. I hadn't been in touch with Jimbo per e-mail for months, and because of its odd tone shared the mail privately with Wikipediocracy trustees. One of them, who is a professional journalist, thought the mail was quite extraordinary, and asked me for my permission to check with Jimbo that he had actually written it. After some deliberation, I gave him that permission. No other journalists had sight of that mail until Jimbo posted it himself. AndreasKolbe JN466 14:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

36. Support one-year ban: drastic problems demand drastic solutions, and this is a drastic problem. Wikipedia's system is being gamed, and only a strong response will show that such behaviour is not acceptable. Robofish (talk) 18:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support Gibraltar DYKs continuing (please indicate a maximum rate, like 1 a day, 1 a week, etc.)

1. Gibraltar is fine as a DYK topic. I support a ban upon the Wikipediocracy editors who seem to be making a meal of this in order to discredit Wikipedia in general. Warden (talk) 16:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the message. Not everyone concerned about this is from Wikipediocracy, I would have started this RFC if Andreas hadn't got here first. What will discredit Wikipedia is the appearance that if you pay the right "consultants" you can achieve product placement on the main page. JohnCD (talk) 17:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   I concur with JohnCD. I am no great fan of said website, but the concerns about Gibraltarpedia are legitimate and ones which plenty of good faith editors who are not affiliated with Wikipedia Review or Wikipediocracy like me share. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:09, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   I concur with JohnCD and Tom Morris. Further, I find grossly uncivil these continual slurs against people who rightly, and on-policy, object to the ongoing deliberate injection of undue emphasis into Wikipedia's main page. I was invited to those watchdog fora, but I declined, solely to remain free of accusations of such membership by the likes of Warden and Prioryman. GLAM is ok, but the Gibraltar ongoing promo stinks, because it stems from the rotten profit-making intention to use and offer Wikipedia as an advertising medium. As I voted below, the maximum stench I could support is one GDYK per week, and only on low-readership shifts. --Lexein (talk) 02:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   The editors there seem to have an agenda and are openly discussing canvassing tactics for this RfC: "And it appears they are winning. I would suggest getting some of the anti-paid-editing cranks to show up and vote." Warden (talk) 12:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2. When a topic is over-represented over a long period, but the content produced is of sufficient quality, the solution is to find an appropriate balance, not to ban it for five years. That said, I have no opinion at all on what an appropriate balance should be. One a day, week, fortnight or month would all be fine with me. What I cannot accept is otherwise acceptable content being banned from the Main Page on a long term basis, purely because it was over-represented in the past. And as far as I'm concerned that is the only issue, because the WMF's inability to stop the press from having fun at its expense should have no impact on our editorial decisions. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 17:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
3. Maximum of one per queue. Putting more than two topics of the same issue into one queue is overkill. Putting one per queue would allow the backlog of Gibraltar DYKs to be depleted more quickly ending this entire dispute. Outside of the limitation of one per queue, there should be absolutely no discrimination of DYKs on the basis of topic. The only concern should be whether or not they meet the requirement. Ryan Vesey 17:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   I think WereSpielChequers has a good suggestion below on the limit of the number of DYKs any single editor can get from the same topic in one year. This would promote more diversity in DYK. Note that I would only support this limit if it affected all topics, not just Gibraltar. Ryan Vesey 18:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

4. I'm new to this debate, but to call for a five-year ban on articles which are being expanded and nominated in line with the bizarre requirements of DYK seems incredible to me. We need to have variety, but, as noted above, if suddenly there's a surge of nominations about frogs, or a surge of nominations about Paralympians, or similar, we only have ourselves to blame for the DYK criteria. I would bet my house that Jimbo wouldn't have suggested a five-year ban on Paralympian DYKs.... To shift the goalposts (or, more accurately, for Jimbo to "suggest" we shift the goalposts right by five years) is entirely unfair and unjustified. We'd be better off modifying the "five-times expansion" rule or "five-day creation" rule so that DYKs can be nominated more easily (and with more variety). Maybe Jimbo was tired when he wrote about a five-year ban, but I always thought he wanted the internet to "not suck", his suggestion, simply, "sucks". The Rambling Man (talk) 17:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
5. The problem is not with the occasional editor or newbie who responds to all this fuss with a submission or two, or worse happens by coincidence to write about a related subject. The problem with this and other projects is with the people who write a string of related articles as if they are going for some sort of prize. I propose limiting all editors to half a dozen related DYKs within 12 months weeks of each other. For some Gibraltarpedia editors (and others) that would mean no more Gibraltar related (or whatever their pet subject is) DYKs for several weeks 12 months, but crucially the proverbial newbie on the Clapham WiFi could do a fivefold expansion of Zanclean flood or more realistically Camarinal Sill and submit it to DYK without anyone complaining about yet another Gibraltarpedia article. Write several more and they'd be politely told what the maximum rate was before they reached it and have time to write about something completely different. By contrast a limit on the whole topic would be bureaucratic creep that could catch out people with no involvement in the QR codes and place pedia saga. ϢereSpielChequers 17:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Imagine that your proposal be enacted; would that mean I couldn't write seven DYKs about historic-designated houses in the USA in a year? How is that a problem? Nyttend (talk) 05:00, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   As a corollary to what Nyttend is saying, what about core articles? I know Casliber has been steadily expanding and improving articles on the southern constellations...these are on the vital articles list and he's done at least half a dozen in the past few months. One, Corona Australis, was recently promoted to FA, and Triangulum Australe is currently at FAC. Why should we keep his seventh (tenth, whatever number) DYK-eligible southern constellation off the main page? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   You and Nyttend have a fair point. DYK can survive similar topics more frequently than one a month. I've amended my suggestion to 6 in 12 weeks, or one a fortnight. Does that meet your concern, and do you accept my concern that too much of any one topic is not good for DYK? ϢereSpielChequers 18:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

6. Gibraltar-related hooks to continue to be passed with the special rules agreed upon in the prior DYK discussion, crucially: no nominations or articles by Victuallers, placement of the nominations in a special section and requirement of a second review with special attention given to sourcing and promotionality. I would prefer there to be no specific limit on their frequency (i.e., the normal one or two per set maximum except for previously discussed special occasions) but find the unofficial one a day guideline an acceptable sensible concession to those who disagree for whatever reason. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
7. No Ban, one per queue, which should be the same with all subjects. We don't have second class editors, articles, or topics at wikipedia. μηδείς (talk) 18:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
8. Provided the articles are WP:NPOV and meet Wikipedia standards there is simply no reason to ban an entire topic from DYK for any reason. Queues should always have some diversity and it is common sense to limit any subject to only one slot per queue. The current plan for dealing with Gibraltar hooks is working just fine. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
9. No ban Gibraltar related nominations are already following the guidelines that have been imposed on regular DYK nominations and the special rules placed on Gibraltar related nominations. They are appearing less then a number of other topic fields, such as the frogs noted above.If i were to start writing articles about fossil taxa described from Gibraltar why should I be penalized, I have no affiliation with the Gibraltarpedia thing at all.--Kevmin §
10. My reaction to this, which I'm sure many editors will share, is "For God's sake, not this again". There is no ongoing media controversy about this issue. The only reason why we're discussing it yet again is because of the campaign being run by Jayen466 on and off-wiki. This has been discussed ad nauseum on this and other pages. Every previous discussion has ended with large majorities against any ban or moratorium and it's quite obvious that Jayen466 is simply not willing to accept any outcome that he disagrees with. This is textbook disruptive behaviour; frankly we would be better having an RfC about him rather than this non-issue. There is only a small number of Gibraltar-related articles waiting to be reviewed and those that have been passed are currently trickling onto the Main Page at the rate of - at the most - a couple a week. We have had a grand total of two in the last week, Rock Hotel and Trafalgar Cemetery. We're not even close to breaching the unofficial one a day guideline previously agreed and no reviewer at any point has found any COI or promotional problems with any article, even after specifically being instructed to look for them. There is simply no good reason to ban an entire topic area from DYK, which has never happened before - and bear in mind that Jayen466 wants to ban not only articles about Gibraltar but also those about Spain and Morocco from DYK. Prioryman (talk) 18:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Let's just note that I have said that articles falling within the geographical scope of the Gibraltarpedia competition should be banned. That includes a very small part of Spain and Morocco (roughly what Gibraltar tourists can go and visit on a day trip). AndreasKolbe JN466 18:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, and under that rubric you would ban my recent DYK submissions that are not even about Gibraltar, such as a ruined Roman town, a remote Spanish beach and a dead Spanish painter. The Main Page isn't exactly being flooded with such articles and there's no conceivable COI or promotional issue with them. Bottom line, your agenda is first and foremost about attacking and undermining Gibraltarpedia because you disapprove of it. You're entitled to your opinion but you're not entitled to perpetrate this disruptive and abusive campaign. Prioryman (talk) 18:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Gibraltarpedia is a project designed to "market Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia". This is how tourism marketing works: you tell people about all the interesting things at and around your promoted destination. AndreasKolbe JN466 19:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, that completely exposes your agenda, doesn't it. I'm working on an improved version of Baelo Claudia which I'll be nominating for DYK in due course. It has nothing to do with Gibraltar and it's not even near Gibraltar (it's a good 40km away). There's no flood of articles about Roman colonies, no possible topic drift and (there will be) no issues with quality or NPOV. But you would still ban it from DYK for no other reason than that you speculate that it might be useful to the Gibraltarian tourist industry. Put simply, you're on a witch hunt. Prioryman (talk) 20:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    JN466, you may have said it somewhere, but it's nowhere in the RfC text. We're voting on the RfC text as it stands: it just says "Gibraltar" in its header (and makes no other mention of what's being affected), so it you want to add something new, you'll need to start a new RfC. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I think this RfC is deceptive if we are not absolutely clear about what is proposed to be banned, so I've added that to the top. Prioryman (talk) 20:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    You cannot say "whether or not they have any connection with Gibraltar.[8]" when this is the area that the Gibraltar government has paid to have promoted as a tourist product in Wikipedia, and the editors are Gibraltarpedia participants. Moreover, you are ascribing the same view to everybody who supports a ban. I doubt that is accurate. Opinions will vary among supporters of a ban, and you should not presume to speak for them. AndreasKolbe JN466 20:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Let's be blunt, it is a lie to say that "the Gibraltar government has paid to have the area promoted as a tourist product in Wikipedia." The Gibraltar government paid John Cummings and Roger Bamkin (Victuallers) for consultancy, to train Gibraltarians to edit Wikipedia and add QR codes to buildings in Gibraltar [9]. For God's sake, Andreas, show some respect to your fellow editors and tell them the truth. Prioryman (talk) 20:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    As Andreas appears to be the most outspoken on the "tourist promotion" thing I'll comment. Andreas, if there is is dreadful promotion thing only, why is it almost every article created is historical and completely unrelated to anything which is likely to lure the biggest amount of tourists? The average tourist wouldn't care about Moorish Gibraltar, lighthouses, back roads or one of its bastions, much less DYK would be first port of call for booking a holiday. Why is it Tourism in Gibraltar has not bene touched, the vast majority of the commercial enterprises on Gibraltar like shops, hotels and restaurants and local tourist tours have yet to be started/expanded? If you actually read every article being produced none of them are even remotely promotional in that way. The biggest message I get is that there are a considerable number of cultural people involved in Gibraltar who genuinely want to see Gibraltar's coverage historically and culturally to improve and make Gibraltar seem super interesting. like the directorof the botanical gardens wants to see articles on plants etc. If that indirectly brings in more tourists it shouldn't really matter to us because the articles themselves do not read like adverts or tourist guides and are easily within guidelines. I think this is more a front against paid editing and resentment above everything, if we are being "used" it is more so to our own gain as a resource.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:20, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Please view [10], which explains the business model (main page placement is mentioned at 12:21). Read Gibraltarpedia and Monmouthpedia, which mentions that the project won a marketing award and had an advertising value of 2.12 million (that is the value of the press coverage, not the WP main page). Also see [11]. Please read up on product placement: some forms of advertising simply exist in reminding you of the existence of something. The Gibraltar Government's stated aim for the project is "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia." Also see Fluffernutter's excellent explanation in the section above (#14). AndreasKolbe JN466 18:01, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry, excuse my ignorance of all this in-fighting, but if an article is unduly weighted then WP:UNDUE applies, if it's full of nonsense claims then WP:V applies, as does WP:N. I assume all DYKs are subject to those basic checks, so what is the issue here? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    The issue is that Jayen466 and his chums want to create an additional criterion which is, in effect, that if they consider an article to be of relevance to tourism in Gibraltar then it must not be allowed to go through DYK. This would apply to articles about Spain and Morocco as well. It has nothing to do with the integrity of articles and everything to do with kicking the Gibraltar Tourist Board in the balls. Prioryman (talk) 20:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Ok, so this 5-year-ban thing is a complete farce, right? If articles are generally accepted by the community (i.e. they meet WP:N via WP:V and don't fall foul of WP:POV and WP:ADVERT) then they're cool, regardless of whether they mention Gibraltar or otherwise? So what's the issue? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    You say it is a lie, but Roger Bamkin "picked Gibraltar... as his next project after being flooded with invitations from places around the world". WMUK says: Roger and John are being paid as consultants by the Government of Gibraltar to help deliver this project. The Gibraltar Government's stated aim for the project is "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia." Can you seriously maintain that if Roger had picked Mexico or Scotland instead of Gibraltar for his next client there would now be so many Gibraltar articles in DYK? The Gibraltar government has bought product placement. JohnCD (talk) 22:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    No, they haven't. The Gibraltar government has no say whatsoever about what gets nominated for DYK. That has either been a matter of editors self-nominating their own articles, or me spotting good-quality articles and nominating them and providing interesting hooks for them. That's happening entirely without the Gibraltar government's involvement. Prioryman (talk) 22:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Would we be here arguing about Gibraltar hooks if Roger had done a deal with Mexico instead of Gibraltar? JohnCD (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm sure someone would be arguing about something, as that seems to be the normal state of affairs on Wikipedia. ;-) Prioryman (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    You have avoided my question, but the answer to it is "No", and that is the reason for saying that the Gibraltar government are getting product placement on the main page as a result of their deal with Roger. JohnCD (talk) 22:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Today, we have had on the main page the article José Cruz Herrera, with a nice little paragraph on the "Museo Cruz Herrera", which is located right on the border to Gibraltar, in walking distance from the Gibraltar airport. This is the sort of thing that you would find a prospectus on in the lobby of a Gibraltar hotel. This is well within the scope of a tourist brochure for Gibraltar, and if we are counting Gibraltar hooks for October, hooks like these should be included. AndreasKolbe JN466 00:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I could watch Millennium on teevee in Gibraltar, should we have counted the hook for "The Time Is Now"? You seem to be reaching just to prove a point; information on a Spanish painter from Spain is not promoting something it doesn't even mention. GRAPPLE X 00:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a perfect example of the kind of bad faith that Kolbe is projecting. The article is not about Gibraltar; the only connection that the subject of the article had with the place was that his grandparents worked there. The museum seems to be pretty obscure - I didn't see it publicised anywhere in tourist literature or guidebooks in Gibraltar when I visited, so it is flatly false to claim that it is the "sort of thing that you would find a prospectus on in the lobby of a Gibraltar hotel". Kolbe doesn't tell us how he knows this, not surprisingly. 90% of the article is about the painter, not the museum. Any sensible article about an artist is going to tell the reader where his work can be viewed. In short, this is Kolbe's usual frothy mixture of false claims and ignorant bad-faith assumptions. Prioryman (talk) 00:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    It prominently mentions (and cites the website of) a museum that is less than a mile away from Gibraltar. You know, when you want to attract tourists, you tell them about the attractions in your city, and its immediate neighbourhood. That's just normal, and that's why the Gibraltar tourist ministry wants Gibraltarpedia to cover Gibraltar's immediate environs too. It all adds to Gibraltar's attractiveness as a tourist destination. So, nothing wrong with the articles, but we do not need to advertise Gibraltar's attractions on our main page. Are you seriously trying to tell us that your writing this article had nothing at all to do with Gibraltarpedia and the fact that there is an "obscure museum" devoted to the artist within a stone's throw of Gibraltar airport, or that you were unaware of this fact? AndreasKolbe JN466 00:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    90% of the article is about the man, not the museum. The museum is only cited "prominently" because it happens to be a useful reference on the life of the man, which is exactly what you would expect. I get the feeling you would still be whining if the article said nothing whatsoever about the museum. It's frankly crazy that you've elevated 66 words in a 650-word article into some kind of unacceptable promotion. You have lost any sense of proportion. As for where I got the idea for the article from, I looked for Spanish Wikipedia articles via Google Maps, started translating the equivalent article from the Spanish Wikipedia, realised it was a copyvio (now deleted) and wrote a fresh article instead. I'd never heard of the museum before I saw it on the map (and I visited La Lineá, too). Prioryman (talk) 00:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    So you, who are prominently involved in getting Gibraltarpedia articles onto the main page, went into Google Maps. You did not find an article mentioning a museum in Siberia, South India, Indonesia, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Germany or Lithuania. You found an article mentioning a museum less than a mile from Gibraltar in Google Maps. And this was a coincidence? AndreasKolbe JN466 00:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Is it so hard to believe that the Spanish Wikipedia would have an article worth translating on a Spanish artist? GRAPPLE X 00:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Why should I write about those countries when I'd just come back from Spain and Gibraltar with my hands full of photos and notes? I looked for Spanish articles to translate; there are lots of articles on the Spanish Wikipedia about the Algeciras area. es:José Cruz Herrera (now deleted) was written way back in 2006, six years before Gibraltarpedia was created. It couldn't possibly be considered "promotional" by any sensible person because it already existed and wasn't promoting anything other than the life of an important Spanish artist. Similarly I wrote articles about Carteia (already covered at es:Carteia) and Cala Arenas (es:Cala Arenas). The fact that you're complaining about me translating and developing existing articles which aren't even about Gibraltar shows that, as Grapple X rightly says, you're engaged in a ridiculous reach. Prioryman (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Algeciras is next door to Gibraltar, and part of the area this paid tourist marketing project is designed to promote. AndreasKolbe JN466 01:13, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    That still doesn't change the fact that nothing mentioned in that hook remotely related to Gibraltar or its tourism board, nor does it cast any shadow on the article's genesis, so it's still a stupid reach to be attempting to make. GRAPPLE X 01:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    The information which was present on the main page specifically states Casablanca, nowhere else; a reader who makes the leap from "painter in Morocco", "museum is in place A", "place A is near place B", "visit place B" is already going to be predisposed to visit the area anyway. This is simply a ridiculous reach. GRAPPLE X 00:23, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

11. No ban per se (what would the situation be if some major event happened in Gibraltar, or new archaeological discoveries were made, requiring new articles to be written?) but the immediate abandonment of the Gibraltarpedia "competition"; a moratorium on new submissions until the WMUK review has reported and action on it decided; a total ban on any similar future competitions in which prizes are based on main page appearances; and (while I'm at it) a ban on all self-nominations and on any experienced editors (number of edits to be decided) being allowed to have their new articles nominated. The whole purpose and operation of DYK needs to be examined, just as much as the Gibraltarpedia project needs to be examined. The DYK process, and initiatives like Gibraltarpedia (and Monmouthpedia, to which I contributed), do virtually nothing either to encourage new editors into WP or to improve article coverage in any meaningful way - they are simply games played by established editors. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support Gibraltar DYKs continuing. A maximum of one hook every 24 hours seems about right, but I expect it would be less than that. I think the other current restrictions should continue until the Gibraltarpedia contest has ended. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support continuation 1 every 24 hours is fine. We should not be banning them but encouraging others to start their own projects and increase the contribution of content to wikipedia. Articles are vigorously checked for "promotional material" and are largely historical anyway. No comment on Jimbo being more interested in politics and correctness than he is in content... ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 19:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    comment only GHMyrtle is right. DYK encourages new editors. That's what it does. You have enthusiastic editors and you want to stop them? Is this because of a newspaper article from a town which had one active wikipedian when he started this new project? The newspaper didn't understand - we are now talking to Gibraltar's media about releasing its archives. It would be nice to think that that editors can get paid for putting hooks on the front page and getting a thousand clicks. But I don't know anyone who'd pay - and its not what we are engaged to help with (ie I am a consultant for Gibraltar}. (Laura Hale has a nice analysis which demos this). The competition is for fun. Look at its edit history. It never had a major prize. The major prize was suggested by another project lead. Above you will see that I suggest that we remove the value of points for getting a DYK in the competition. Its the projects editors who like doing DYK. This project is creating new editors and new Wikipedia supporters and teachers teaching wikipedia in their lessons. Its creating enthusiastic editors creating quality articles. The last competition we ran like this was won by a Hungarian and before that a Russian. Neither of them created DYKs on the English Wikipedia. I think that the Wikitown idea is important as it changes the real world, but please don't beat up the DYK project and please put the enthusiasm of these editors first. Victuallers (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe you should contact Monmouth, apparently they value their relationship with Wikipedia at £2.12million worth of advertising. I'm sure some of that could trickle down from the board members to the editors who are actually doing the advertising. Gigs (talk) 20:36, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    If this is a comment only and not a vote then please refactor your comment so that it doesn't increment the count. Also please make a declaration of your financial involvement in Gibraltarpedia so that people know that you are not making a disinterested comment.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

14. I don't think an outright ban is an appropriate response going forward, and would be unjust to those uninvolved in the past issues. Monty₈₄₅ 20:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
15. I support Gibraltar hooks, and hooks of any topic whatsoever, to continue unmolested through the process. I do, however, support a gag order on editors who avoid content creation/improvement themselves deriding the hard work of others without adding anything themselves. GRAPPLE X 20:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
16. I support them continuing and please let this be the last RfC on this subject. It's already been decided that they should get more scrutiny than other topics to avoid any COI or promotional issues (even though there was little to none to begin with because the main editor creating articles is completely unaffiliated with Gibraltar). Run them 1 a day, as it has been more or less decided and let this be the end of it. Silverseren^C 21:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
17. One per week - that's still 52 per year. If two slip through per week, then no GDYK the next week. The more promotional a non-GLAM project is, the firmer the brakes should be applied. As for time-sensitive DYK, better plan far in advance. Not our problem. --Lexein (talk) 21:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
18. No ban. Throttling, if any, of repetitive subjects should be generic, not topic-specific. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Do you have a COI to declare? Carrite (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Do you? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    @Rambling Man. Nope, I don't. I've never taken a cent to be junketed in Gibraltar. I take shit from the jihadists at Wikipediocracy because I'm a committed Wikipedian. I am not a PR professional. I have never falsely played the Right To Vanish card, only to reappear. I have never operated a sock puppet. I have never registered any account except this one, which is linked to my real name, real address, and real email. I am not a member of Wikimedia UK or any other Wikimedia chapter with close connections to the Gibraltar "contest," so-called. I'm done, now you go. Carrite (talk) 03:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    He's a Wikipediocracy member. Prioryman (talk) 21:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    If by "member," you mean that I have registered and post on a message board, yes, you are very right. Now who paid for your trip to Gibraltar? Carrite (talk) 03:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I've already answered that question - answered you IIRC - elsewhere. Your continued rhetorical asking if it is unacceptable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    This is getting awfully close to "When did you stop beating your wife?" territory. —howcheng {chat} 17:42, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Andy, it's polite and ethical to point out in a discussion any COI that has relevance to the discussion. Do you have a financial relationship with WM:UK or any entity involved with Gibraltarpedia? Just leaving innuendos standing, without clarifying, looks bad for you, and leaves me wondering. I'm not Carrite. And I'm probably not the only one here who doesn't know the answer to that reasonable question. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:49, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

19. Grapple said it perfectly. Manxruler (talk) 22:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
20. Oppose banning any topic. If you have too many Gibralter articles the solution is simple - choose something else to put on the front page. There is no need for a ban and it is somehow counter to the principles of Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 23:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment: Some figures for context: since the start of October we have had 8 DYK articles about Gibraltar on the Main Page. In the last week there have been 2 Main Page DYK articles, and 4 nominations. There have been about 450 DYK articles on the Main Page since October 1st. This means that Gibraltar-related articles have constituted 1.77% of all DYK articles in October to date. The average frequency with which they have appeared on the Main Page has been one article every 3.125 days, which is over three times slower than the informally agreed one-per-day frequency. This compares to a single editor, User:Sasata, contributing no less than 58 articles about mushrooms in the same period, running on the Main Page at frequencies of up to 12 articles per day. I don't see anyone complaining about the frequency with which mushrooms appear on the Main Page. Prioryman (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I just want to add here that the mushroom articles often have very nice pictures, and for some reason mushroom hooks are quite popular. We may have started getting tired of reviewing them and queuing them so there weren't too many, but the readers did not get tired of reading about them. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    There couldn't have been any Gibraltarpedia articles between the 1st and the 12th, because the previous moratorium was still in place, lasting until 12 October. We then had one Gibraltar hook on the 12th, one on the 13th, two on the 15th, two on the 17th, one on the 19th, one on the 21st, and one on the 26th (on an artist whose biography prominently mentions and cites his museum, which is a stone's throw from Gibraltar airport). So we had at least 9 Gibraltarpedia articles within the space of 15 days. Just saying. And I may well have missed one or two additional Gibraltarpedia articles that don't have the word "Gibraltar" in the hook. AndreasKolbe JN466 00:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    The article about the Spanish artist who was born in Spain and worked in Morocco was not about Gibraltar. This would be obvious to anyone who's not seeing Gibraltarians under every bed. As I said, there have been eight articles about Gibraltar since October 1st - not remotely a flood or "spamming". Prioryman (talk) 00:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Has anyone given any thought that these people kicking up all the fuss about Gibraltar on DYK the last couple of months have given little old Gibraltar more global press than their tourist board could have dreamed possible. If all the nominations had passed with little fuss, who would have noticed but a handful? Now...just look at the press. Couldn't have worked out better for Gibraltar if those complainers were actually in sheep's clothing. Or in this case, would it be sheep in wolf's clothing? — Maile (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    A Spanish artist whose museum is a stone's throw from Gibraltar airport. How many articles about Spanish artists who do not have a museum next door to Gibraltar have you written lately? Again, nothing against your article creations. But why the bloody-minded insistence that all these Gibraltar-related articles must appear on the Wikipedia main page? Is it because that is what the business presentation promised? AndreasKolbe JN466 01:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Still ignoring that the article was translated from one written in 2006, 6 years before any presentation? GRAPPLE X 01:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I saw the Spanish article before it was deleted. The English one was not a translation of it. And frankly, so what if es:WP had a copyright-violating article on this painter 6 years ago? The question is why we had an English article written a week ago, by someone with a major involvement in Gibraltarpedia, on our main page. Quite simply, the artist's museum mentioned in the article falls within the set of tourist attractions Gibraltarpedia is designed to promote in Wikipedia. That's just a fact. AndreasKolbe JN466 01:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    And as I've already stated, it's just a fact that the hook in no way endorsed or even mentioned Gibraltar or the area containing the museum. GRAPPLE X 01:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Of course it mentioned where the museum was; in La Línea de la Concepción, which according to Wikipedia "has close economic and social links" with Gibraltar. You can put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and repeat a syllable of your choice, but the fact is that this is exactly the type of tourist promotion Gibraltar paid for. The gimmick is that Gibraltar will have a tourist business advantage because visitors to Gibraltar will be able to find information in Wikipedia, while visitors elsewhere will not. And fair enough. But these articles do not also have to run on the main page, on top of that. Yet they have been energetically pushed there, first by Roger, and now by Prioryman. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

21. Oppose banning any topic. And Ditto to what Grapple said. — Maile (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
22. Oppose banning any topic. I am all in favour of more diversity, but there are already procedures in place. Otherwise, editors can write more articles. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
23. Oppose ban: Limiting is fine, but a ban is too reactionary and full of self-censorship — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
24. Oppose ban The articles are interesting and tend to be well-written. A limit of a couple of week would be fine, though, same with frogs and corals. I agree with Gigs' point about the wait until the contest has run its course as a possible action. Contests, including Wikipedia's own contests, tend to degrade the quality of DYKs and up the number of closely-paraphrased and outright copyrighted material. I have not seen this with the Gibraltar articles, copyright problems, but I have only read about half-a-dozen. If they are banned during the course of the contest, maybe we should also ban Wikipedia DYKs during the course of Wikipedia contests. This is not meant sarcastically, just to point out that contests create problems in DYK. -Fjozk (talk) 02:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
25. Oppose any sort of moratorium based on topics. There's already a strict mechanism to ensure that the Gibraltar DYKs are of sufficient quality. Banning them would set a very ugly precedent at the project. Yazan (talk) 03:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
26. 'No ban the only thing we should ban is uninteresting or misleading hooks. Rich Farmbrough, 04:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]
    
27. No ban for a topic. For one thing, this will affect innocent people not related to Gibraltarpedia. For another thing, how are we going to define "Gibraltar-related"? Imagine that I write a biography of some random Bolivian person who happened to live in Gibraltar for a few years. Will this be banned? Note that this is hypothetical; I very rarely write biographies, and Bolivia is far from my interests. Moreover, these articles were improving Wikipedia through expanding old articles and creating new ones, and this is precisely the point of this section of the Main Page. Expanding our content is good as long as it's neutral and legal (e.g. no expansions through copyvios), and I don't remember hearing any evidence (or any allegations, for that matter) that these articles' text violated NPOV or that we had a substantial copyvio problem with them. If we must have some sort of restrictions, make the restriction as minimal as possible. Nyttend (talk) 04:58, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Nobody is talking about banning articles, or preventing the expansion of coverage, only about DYK hooks on the main page. The only effect of any moratorium on your hypothetical article would be to prevent a hook like "...that the Bolivian painter X.Y. lived in Gibraltar for a time in the 1920s." Nor is it suggested that the articles themselves are copyvio or promotional: there are established ways to deal with that. The concern is that there is a widespread (and unfortunately correct) impression that Gibraltar are achieving product placement on the main page because they have paid consultants to run this project. A moratorium would say to others with the same idea that Wikipedia is not so easily used. JohnCD (talk) 09:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

28. 'No ban' I don't see any reason why we should be specifically targeting Gib; 5 year ban is simply outrageous, but understandable as a knee-jerk response. I believe there should be uniform rules that cover the monthly number of submissions by topic (perhaps by project as they are constituted today) and limit the annual and lifetime contribution by each principal contributor. If anything, there should be a lower allowance for Anglo Saxon topics and established editors. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 05:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
29. I don't see the problem. If the articles are up to scratch, fine. DYKs on similar topics should be spread out, but that would be true of any topic, not just Gibraltar. I would suggest a limit of 1 every 48 hours, but oppose any ban or other sanctions. Modest Genius ^talk 12:09, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
30. There's little doubt that even when this poll (since when was RfC a poll, by the way) fails to ban Gibraltar-based DYK noms, every one will be jumped on by the dissenting bloc anyway. That should be enough to prevent inappropriate DYKs. The less said about the alternatives the better. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:59, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
31. No ban No good cause shown. This seems to be the latest front in the war over paid editing. The articles and hooks meet Wikipedia standards, including NPOV, and that's an end to it as far as I'm concerned.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
32. No ban A ban would be a terrible idea. A restriction? Perhaps, but I'd support one of those broadly, across the board - I think mixing up what people see in DYK leads to more interest. A ban (except maybe a small one, though I'm not even convinced of that) would send the wrong message entirely - as long as the articles and hooks are NPOV I don't think there's any problem. Certainly not a massively overriding one. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 15:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
33. Oppose any ban or restriction. Any article that qualifies under the normal DYK rules should be eligible to appear on the Main Page in the DYK section. Personally, I don't care if editors are being paid or not, or if there is an off-wiki campaign to increase the visibility of some topic. The end result is that we have more quality content, which is ostensibly the goal of this project, is it not? —howcheng {chat} 15:47, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    An article doesn't magically – poof! – disappear if it is not featured on the main page, and the Gibraltarpedia competition seems to be incentive enough for the actual article writers. Main page promotion has always only been driven by a couple of individuals. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Exactly what are you inferring about the volunteers who take it upon themselves to promote the articles? There are no restrictions on who can do that. Please clarify your point. If you have individuals in mind, please name them so they can reply to your statement.— Maile (talk) 17:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I am saying that the activities of both of them have attracted opprobrium. In Roger's case, it started with Panyd's thread, which then migrated to Jimbo's talk page, and in Prioryman's case, I have posted links to comments like these complaining about pressurising and canvassing before: [12][13][14]. Both editors were perceived as being pushy in getting Gibraltarpedia hooks onto the main page – even by people who have no objection to the product placement – which somewhat belies the repeated assertions that Gibraltarpedia is not about DYKs. AndreasKolbe JN466 19:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Each article should be judged on its own merits. No more, no less. Like Vegas, what happens off-wiki stays off-wiki. —howcheng {chat} 23:00, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

34. It would be seen as clear discrimination to prevent the odd DYK. Articles are created by locals with best interests. 1 DYK a day seems fair and no more than 5 a week even fairer. The correlation between the mass creation of articles all at once and a few extra DYKs is something that should be realistically expected. I can't remember seeing a DYK about Gibraltar in the 7 years I have been using Wikipedia, maybe it was time for a change. Tonyevans gi (talk) 16:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
35. Oppose any ban or restriction. If we ban Gibraltar, what's next? Certainly there are other topics that Andreas Kolbe does not like. How long will it take for him to seek a ban on LGBT topics or articles on sexuality, for example? If there is something wrong with Gibraltarpedia, then it should be resolved between WMF and WMUK. We should not punish good faith users who are working on this topic.--В и к и T 18:50, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree wholeheartedly. This is the start of some kind of selective censorship. My example, the recent surge of Paralympic athlete DYKs following the Paralympics in London, would presumably be another victim of this crusade which is entirely against the spirit of Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

36. Support continuation with no restriction whatsoever - I see this as an outrageous attack upon editing freedom in an attempt to impose vaguely defined ethical values upon Wikipedia that are nothing to do with building an encyclopedia. This is a brilliant initiative leading to excellent quality content and I applaud any entrepreneurial aspect. If you want Gibralter DYKs to be a small proportion of DYKs, then start your own damn initative to create other DYK-worthy articles. Egg Centric 19:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
37. Oppose any ban or restriction of Gibraltar DYKs. What's next? 10-article Paralympic DYKs being banned? If they meet the DYK criteria, they should be put though. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 19:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
38. Oppose ban, and so oppose any restrictions. People are making Gibraltar/Olympics/Historic building/US-centric DYK-worthy articles and getting them on the front page. You don't like it ? You feel some other topic is under-represented ? Create or expand some articles on that topic and nominate them. --JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
39. Oppose ban: It is unclear to me which DYK guideline the submissions are violating. Special rules should not be set up unless systematic problems have been proven, and no such analysis has been to suggest any systematic problems. Would be fine with maximum of one per day, up to one per prep area if there are a lot. Fine with 2 reviews but would prefer this done with other QPQ rule change which specifies no nominations of others work without a QPQ. --LauraHale (talk) 21:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
40. Support - no more than 2-3 Gibraltar-based DYK per day. Since I oppose an outright moratorium but do want to see a variety in geographical distribution of DYK as well as a broad range of topics, I would rather this one location does not dominate the DYK listings.GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
41. Oppose ban. The DYK rules already suggest a topic balance for any given update. Banning a particular topic would be a dangerous slippery slope to go down. IronGargoyle (talk) 22:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
42. No ban - How many times am I going to have to say this? The same guys push the same stuff every few weeks, I'm not talking about Gibraltar articles, I'm talking about this debate. Do we carry on having the same discussion until it goes your way? Is that how consensus works? The Gibraltar articles, such as Trafalgar Cemetery and Nun's Well, Gibraltar deserve to be featured at DYK because they are DYK quality - compare them to anything non-Gibraltar run. If they were drowning out other articles, then this would be an issue, but they're not. Also, one a day is nothing - on 18 October, we had 3 sealife hooks by one editor in one update. On 17 October, we had three hooks for Millennium (TV series). Above, an editor highlights a plague of frogs. When I edit Wikipedia, I release those edits under a Creative Commons license, I do not care if others are making money off my work. I do not care what people's motives for editing are, what I care about is the content, and the stuff here is good. - hahnchen 22:52, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Hahnchen, those sets should never have had three sealife hooks or three Millennium hooks: that's a failure in the set assembly process. One sealife and/or one Millenium per set would be the usual maximum: as the instructions note, there is supposed to be variety within every set. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't disagree, 3 in one update should not happen. My point is that the level of Gibraltar DYK appearances, even at 1 a day, is not a "ridiculous number" as others have suggested. - hahnchen 19:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

43. Strongly oppose a ban. Sure, the amount of Gibraltar DYKs should be monitored to a certain extent, but banning's not the answer. Though the contest-like atmosphere has been slightly problematic, it definitely does not justify placing a moratorium on these articles. In the end, there are other things to work on than debating such topics as this, which include working to better and increase awareness of our encyclopedic articles. dci | TALK 05:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
44. Oppose ban As far as I have seen, Gibraltarpedia is doing exactly what all wikiprojects attempt to do: increase and improve the coverage of articles related to their topic. Any "Wikiproject X" will want to have as many written articles, DYKs, good articles, A-Class articles and featured articles as possible. And, as long as they follow all the applicable policies on articles and nomination processes, the encyclopedia is benefited by that. Which is the wrong thing in the coverage of Gibraltar, after all? Is this proposal to punish a wikiproject for being successful? The only rule I would support is to avoid two or more DYK on Gibraltar at the same queue, but I think that there is already a rule for that Cambalachero (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
45. Oppose ban per LauraHale above. Albacore (talk) 23:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
46. Oppose ban, but support some sort of restriction/throttling. One/day or one/set sounds fine. Banning a particular topic sets a dangerous precedent for banning any topic. The marketing aspect of this is interesting, but imposing a throttle (which we've done before, I think, though less formally) should deal with the "free marketing" while keeping DYK open to those who write new content for Wikipedia. Shubinator (talk) 05:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
47. Techncially, I guess I don't specifically support including Gibraltar hooks on the front page. However, I don't support singling out one particular topic and saying that it can't be added. If the worry is that the articles were developed by a competition, then ban competition entries from the front page (noting that this would also have killed many other recent DYKs, such as some of the Australian paralympics articles). If the concern is with COIs, then we will need to address that as an issue. Or if the concern is with too many articles on one topic, then we will need to look at how to stagger that when it occurs, as it does fairly frequently. The topic of Gibraltar isn't the problem, so I feel that we should be focused on the underlying problem rather than a particular instance of it. - Bilby (talk) 06:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
48. Support 1 per week as I think we should not try and restrict editors who may just be legitimately interested in contributing to articles and actually being able to reap some benefit from it, even if it is just swag. That limit should dull any promotional effect and will allow each entry to be subject to some scrutiny. We can keep that limit for four months. At that point there will hopefully not be many potential DYK sujects left on the topic and the incentive for creating them will have also passed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:11, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
49. Oppose ban per Shubinator: "Banning a particular topic sets a dangerous precedent for banning any topic". The push for a Gibraltar-specific ban, rather than a general rule on contest entries/COI/etc., seems more driven by public image concerns than encyclopedia-building concerns. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:03, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
50. Oppose: a ban is probably excessive. There should still be a door open for these DYKs, when the circumstances are actually appropriate. Perhaps limit it to something like two per week instead. Everyking (talk) 23:46, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
51. Oppose a ban, they should be treated like other DYKs in the longer run, and if there is still controversy the previous outcome can continue. 1 per day is probably about right, showing in daylight hours for the locality. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:26, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
52. Oppose - baby, bath water. KTC (talk) 20:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
53. Oppose ban - we should have some reasonable limit on all topics, not just Gibraltar. And if we ban the Gibraltar topics from DYK, then it will lok like we banned it because we found out about the contest, making future contests more likely to be off-wiki and harder for us to find. I think we're better off putting up with the devil we know than worry about the devil we won't. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
54. Oppose ban per Shubinator. Tomas e (talk) 18:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
55. Oppose ban - A total ban in my opinion would be a knee jerk reaction driven by concerns of public image. It would be unfair on the overwhelming majority of legitimate contributors to this area to say that there contributions couldn't be on the main page due to an incident in which they have no connection. However, I would support throttling to something like one a week, and in fact I think there should be some kind of throttling for all topic areas. CT Cooper · talk 20:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
56. Oppose I wasn't familiar with this issue, but punishing the creation of content on Wikipedia is absolutely abhorrent to me. If policies such as WP:COI are being violated, deal with such incidents as they arrive. Suppressing information is awfully out of character for this project. I agree with Od Mishehu above; neutral restrictions on topic frequency are fine, but singling out topics is not. --BDD (talk) 20:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
57. Oppose ban Why discriminate against Gibraltar? - Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 00:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Because they paid for the Gibraltarpedia project??? AndreasKolbe JN466 04:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

58. Oppose ban: Gibraltar DYKs should be limited to no more than one appearance at DYK for every newly created or newly expanded Gibraltar article with at least 1500 characters. The way to deal with deep COI problems is to deal with the individuals involved, rather than throwing out bathing babies. I oppose rate limits on any topic, but other than that I strongly agree with Od Mishehu. Nyttend (talk) 21:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]