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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

It's been two days, and amount of approved nominations has slowly gone down a bit. At least we have right now four queues, one completed prep area, and three incomplete areas. --George Ho (talk) 03:26, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And/or increase the exposure of the shifts? I feel sorry for the good ones that appear and disappear within a few hours. Tony (talk) 03:33, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I don't think any number fewer than six is feasible, in terms of balance to the main page. If we need to slow down, which I'm not yet sure we do, we ought to promote queues every twelve hours rather than every eight. However, given that we have 12 approved hooks and only four empty ones in those three incomplete prep areas, I think we're not in desperate straits at the moment. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:35, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Please consider 12-hour shifts. If we occupy too little space in MainPage, we will mess up the layout on MainPage and force ITN and SA/OTD to reduce what they can show on MainPage.--PFHLai (talk) 03:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand this argument about balance on the MP. So TFA is seriously unbalanced because only one appears each day? Twelve-hour shifts and a slight reduction in the number of hooks would be ideal. Then we'd have the capacity to review the noms properly and do the main page proud. Tony (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Balance is a layout issue, about how much room each section takes relative to the other, not how long each iteration appears for. If DYK goes down to four hooks, it takes less vertical space, and ITN and OTD combined have less room to work with. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep it at 7-8 hooks, too small skews layout. Increase time to 10 or 12 hours.PumpkinSky talk 14:30, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I concur; having 18 hooks per day is too much. If 10-12 hours and 6-8 hooks per queue, we may have 12-16 hooks per day. --George Ho (talk) 14:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Cutting back to two hook sets per day is an extreme over-reaction. The queues are well-populated and there's still a healthy backlog of noms. --Orlady (talk) 14:54, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

6 hooks is too small, messes up the layout. Three sets at 7 each now, = 21 hooks a day is good for now. PumpkinSky talk 16:26, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yet we have three filled queues, four completed prep areas, and three empty queues. We'll see what happens today at 00:00 (UTC)... To me seven is too much, as I have thought. --George Ho (talk) 16:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• (edit conflict) There is not a healthy backlog of approved noms, and we're unable to get enough to fill all prep areas and queues. Right now, we're at 18 hooks per day, which is a barely sustainable rate, though contra George Ho's original assertion, I think 4 or 5 per set isn't necessary. If PumpkinSky is right about 6 hooks being too small for the main page, then perhaps we should be doing 8 hooks twice a day, which at 16 daily is about the same as the current 18. We've been averaging fewer than 18 new hooks a day lately (September 21 through October 1, which are the latest complete days), and some of these are being rejected. We simply can't sustain sets of 7 or 8 at a three-a-day rate just now, if that's the number of hooks we need to achieve balance on the main page. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now we are back to five queues, one empty queue, and four empty prep areas. Thoughts? --George Ho (talk) 04:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

George, if you were counting, you would see that we have 32 approved hooks, just enough to fill that empty queue and four empty prep areas at six per with two left over. What we haven't had over the past 24 hours or so are people who have time to fill the prep areas. They'll get filled eventually. At the moment, there's no sign that we need to decrease or increase the number of hooks per set from the current six. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: 30 hooks. I don't see two extras. As a result, I expect two more queues for the day and three more for tomorrow. Nevertheless, let's wait... --George Ho (talk) 04:48, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to the list on T:DYK/Q, there are 160 nominations, of which 32 are verified (and thus, presumably, ready to be promoted to a prep area). That's what I was citing; it's updated every half hour if there have been changes, and still shows 32 as of the update five minutes ago. More hooks will doubtless be verified over the next day; we seem to be keeping pace with the rate of main page promotions at the moment. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:07, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I put the first two into Prep 1 but then got sidetracked by gnoming. I'll leave it at that for someone else to complete the set (with or without changing what I've done; I haven't tried prep building previously and there may be better choices). Yngvadottir (talk) 05:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now we are down to two filled queues and two filled prep areas. --George Ho (talk) 00:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

True. And there are enough approved hooks to fill the remaining six areas (queues and preps) with two left over, just about where we were five days ago. The situation hasn't really changed. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right now there are two queues and two prep areas filled in. Is it too soon to make a 12-hour queue? --George Ho (talk) 04:55, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem wasn't the lack of "filled" preps and queues, but rather the shortage of approved hooks. Now we have enough hooks to filled the preps and queues twice over. So I think we're fine. Yazan (talk) 05:38, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

From my reading of this debate and past ones, I have come to the conclusion of agreement with John Vandenberg, and propose that in the eligibility criteria, to the three options listed at the top an article must have been in the last 5 days either:

we should add a fourth:

Then, this new GA would go through the DYK process in exactly the same way that any other article would, through the nomination, reviewing, and placing in a prep area. Comments, suggestions, and expressions of support or opposition are welcome.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 17:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I really don't think we should be adding GAs into DYK, regardless of it we're going to be putting them through the DYK rules. The entire point of DYK is to showcase new content, to show that there are still subjects to be written about and new ones are being made every day. GA has nothing to do with this. And, on the other hand, I fully support GAs getting their own section on the main page. I don't get why this hasn't been done already anyways. But I definitely don't think they should be coupled with DYK. Even without considering the fact that most GAs would be prior DYKs, which would disqualify them from being nominated again. Silverseren^C 17:59, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - Regardless of intent, restricting GAs would hurt the process. Restricting articles that were part of "In the News" column is enough; we don't need irrelevant, pointless restrictions to please someone, like Jimmy. --George Ho (talk) 18:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't understand your oppose, you are saying that restricting GAs would hurt the process, but opposing adding GAs. Ryan Vesey 18:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• We're adding, not restricting, right? Oh... well, still oppose anyway... because the GA status should be optional, not required. Well, promoting GA into Main Page is one thing, but making it as "new" wouldn't work... Some GAs would be demoted if quality goes bad quickly. GA one day; demoted next day. Simple? --George Ho (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Your oppose reason is not logical. :/ This proposal is to allow GAs to be put through the DYK process. The GA status is still optional.

  Regarding GA demotion, surely a GA going through the DYK process is more likely to be stable than a DYK of an article written or expanded in the last week. Irrespective of that, the quality of the article is only needed at the time the article hits the front page. If it deteriorates thereafter, the horde of front page viewers are not adversely affected. This doesnt differ from the existing classes of DYK articles. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as written It needs limitations that have been described above. Ryan Vesey 18:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose We already have people saying DYK has too broad a set of aims; this would mix in something very different and genuinely dilute those aims. No prejudice against GAs getting their own Main Page slot; I understand the category came about a couple of years ago? Now that it's well established, those who work in that area of endeavour should see about getting it incorporated into the Main Page if they want. But not mixed in with the very different category of new or newly expanded articles. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, essentially for the same reasons that everyone else has already raised. Prioryman (talk) 00:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. This proposal has been made (more than once I think) in the past. The main page already gives prominent focus to FAs reflecting contributions by those who have honed subjects extensively. The DYK section of the main pages serves a different purposes. It draws attention to newly created/expanded content. By doing so, it attracts additional eyes to new content, helping to improve the new content with contributions from others. It also serves as an excellent means to encourage creation of new content and to develop newer editors. For these reasons, and as I have also voted in the past, I still oppose the proposal. Cbl62 (talk) 00:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose: I think the number of GAs I have seen at DYK probably would total one a week. GA is fundamentally not ready to do this at this time. The impetus to do this needs to come from within the WP:GAN project, with work done to improve GAN to make this idea even a feasible one to discuss. --LauraHale (talk) 03:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The DYK system is good at managing the process of putting enticing links to articles onto the front page, the writers and readers both like it, and I dont think there is room on the front page to have an additional section for GAs. While new articles are great, 5x expansions are better for the quality of the encyclopedia, and GAs are better again. We should be focusing on quality rather than quickly written articles. I have seen quite a few 5x expansions that are full of ridiculous bloat in order to cross the threshold and be eligible for DYK. Currently the DYK reviewers are not keen on rejecting a DYK for an article full of bloat. I would prefer that in these cases, where 5x isnt really feasible, the writers can go via the GA process in order to be eligible for DYK, and DYK reviewers have the option of saying to new articles that are nominated too late or 5x's that are stuffed with trivia 'no, but you can restart this DYK nomination after a successful GA'. That gives the writers a new obtainable objective, more suited to people who work a bit slower. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per John Vandenberg. JN466 08:59, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: per John Vandenberg, except that DYK needs to lift its game as far as providing "enticing" hooks: so often they're from the Hall of Lame, as I've previously pointed out. Could we have input from people who are not DYK regulars with a conflict of interest, please? Tony (talk) 09:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC) PS Should it be "Promoted to GA status in the past X days? Tony (talk) 09:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I've always liked this idea, especially if it gets more eyes on a newly-minted GA...and maybe a push towards FAC. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Good articles and New articles? Apples and oranges. Poeticbent talk 09:57, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I object to DYK being diluted with GAs. Doing that takes away space for new articles which is what DYK is supposed to promote. It would be much better if GAs had their own space on the main page rather than trying to stick them in DYK. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 10:22, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as nom and also to say most GAs have not been DYK's already, and during the development often significant amounts of content are added/re-written, without necessarily achieving a 5x expansion, which is the spirit, if not strictly the letter, of DYK anyway.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 19:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Any way we encourage and reward good content is good. Breaking fiefdoms, which this proposal seems to do while far less important, also tickles my fancy. Politicking is of course inevitable, but I am certain we will all endeavor to get past it.--Tznkai (talk) 03:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support; John Vandenberg makes a persuasive case. (I would also consider a separate GA section on the front page if we could squeeze it in somewhere). bobrayner (talk) 05:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, at the very least as a trial - I've opposed this in the past (I think) but I'm beginning to favour the idea, and John puts forward a pretty good argument. I would strongly support keeping something like the current time-limited rule, though - nominate the article within a week or so of passing as GA - to avoid flooding, and call it something like "...new and recently improved articles". Not all GAs are significantly improved at the time of passing, of course, but it's a reasonable proxy. Andrew Gray (talk) 08:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. It's much more important to improve articles to B or GA status than to clear the DYK hurdle. DYKs are important for encouraging new editors, but the main page should showcase good articles, such as GAs. 14:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk • contribs)
• Support. Further to the above, featuring good articles in DYK better reflects the mature nature of the project, where improving existing content is as important as creating new content, if not more important. – Steel 20:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support – In addition to all the good arguments above, this will quite simply raise the quality of the average DYK article on the front page, which can only be a positive for the project. This proposal in no way changes any of the previous requirements, and seems like a great way to encourage more work at all the levels between a shiny new DYK and a majestic and agéd FA. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 23:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm curious - how exactly would it "raise the quality of the average DYK article"? GAs are not DYKs; the two go through quite different processes. Are you anticipating some kind of magical osmosis by which the halo of quality in (some) GAs somehow seeps into DYKs? Prioryman (talk) 23:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Heh, not exactly. What I meant was that if some of the DYKs are GAs, then the average quality of an article that someone sees when they click a link in a front page hook will be higher. Obviously, GAs and DYKs are separate processes right now, but if an article had to first become a GA and then go through the normal DYK vetting, it's going to better (on average) than a brand new article made into a DYK, thus the average article placed in the DYK box will be higher. Kinda like if they added a new prize in a lottery. Even if most of the tickets were still losers, the average would go up. Hope that clarifies my meaning. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 02:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment In the future can the WT:GAN board please be notified if there is a proposal affecting Good articles. I am opposed to adding GA's to DYK unless it is done in such a way that distinguishes a Good article from a new article. AIRcorn (talk) 00:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Opposed DYK has a distinct and unique purpose--highlight new content creation. GA has its own purpose of being FA-lite or Peer Review-part deux (however you want to look at it). It makes no sense to muddle up the DYK section with other "not-so-new-but-we-really-want-to-somehow-get-these-GAs-on-the-main-page" articles that distract from DYK's purpose. Plus, as other have noted that the standards of DYK in many cases surpass GA now with noms having to practically go through a gauntlet of reviewers to get through the DYK process instead of a single reviewer with GA's. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason DYK's have multiple reviewers is because they are featured on the main page. If GA's were featured they would also have more eyes on them. AIRcorn (talk) 01:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the evidence that the standards of DYKs now surpass GAs? Every single one I've looked at wouldn't make GA, and many are so far off even meeting the DYK criteria that it's shameful. Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support for a few reasons. GA content quite often is new content (DYK's mandate), the result of expansion or extensive revision. Secondly, I'm consistently disheartened by the sniping that goes on between the content reviewers and creators in the various WP review processes (e.g. DYK's are shitty, GA people are jerks, FA is an elitist club, etc., etc.) We should work more together, and hopefully avoid getting at each other's throats. Third, this provides additional incentive for GA rewrites/expansions. Finally, the Main Page is attractive. Let's share the love. The Interior (Talk) 01:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I thought we already did this. I guess just a time warped. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 02:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - A GA is a significant thing, and there really isn't space (or an obvious format) to otherwise feature them, but they're worth being featured. WilyD 08:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose You thought the DYK backlogs were long now? DYK has the advantage of being time-limited (recent additions or expansions only). If we add in GAs to this we'll have to deal with a flood of old articles fighting for a main page spot. The whole point of DYK is new content. No way. IronGargoyle (talk) 11:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose this perennial proposal for the same two reasons as the last time this was suggested: DYK has enough problems without allowing articles that pass GA requirements but fail to meet current DYK standards (excepting DYK newness requirement) and this proposal exasperates current process bottleneck by opening a flood of new nominations without providing any compensating increase in reviewers. --Allen3 ^talk 12:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Quality re-writing is at least as worthy as new writing. It would probably have to have a caveat that makes it not retroactive though (as Tony1 suggested). bridies (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose There's no need. It's about new articles, not just expanded ones. Give the others a a chance. Rcsprinter (state the obvious (or not)) @ 19:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support This proposal should address many of the concerns of the community. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - DYK is not always about new articles anyway, one of the criteria is for old, unsourced articles that have been expanded fivefold. In my view, an article promoted to GA status is just as worth of a DYK as an expanded article. Cabe6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 12:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose; the options and pages are clogged and breaking as it is, let alone if we add more stuff into the mix. Ironholds (talk) 05:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose GA is too high of a barrier to overcome. DYK encourages much more modest contributions. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • (reply) If you read the proposal more clearly, it doesn't change how existing DYKs are promoted (e.g. newly-created articles and 5x expanded articles), it is merely adding another set of eligible articles for DYK. There is no "raising of the barrier". -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: It would be great to have a way to appreciate GA-quality articles somehow, and this is a good way to showcase them on the main page. Currently the Chinese Wikipedia does something similar with a dedicated section for daily GA-quality articles, which works like a charm, and it would be good of the English Wikipedia started to showcase GAs as well, even if it is only a one liner within the DYK section (after all, enwiki is a much, much larger encyclopedia than zhwiki). At present, we give a lot of attention to FAs and newly-created articles, but tend to leave GAs out in the cold. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Some of the comments above point out DYK's role to showcase new content and then try to link that to articles promoted to GA. Unfortunately a lot of GA articles get promoted from B class solely through article clean up and addition of references, without any new prose added. An automatic qualification for GA articles would include static articles that have been tidied in addition to new content. Road Wizard (talk) 12:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I agree with the goal of putting Good Articles somewhere on the main page, but I don't think diluting an area as valuable as DYK is the way to do that. If a main page section has to be squeezed to make room for GAs, I think a better place to consider would be OTD. Khazar2 (talk) 13:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The point behind DYK is for new content. Something that an average new user can accomplish rather earlier in their editing career. We need to promote editing to the consumer population and this is the dangling carrot for them. GA require so much work that they are only attainable by veteran contributors. Having a mixed section sends a mixed message and is too confusing. Put GA on the main page in a different fashion, like its own section in a redesign of the main page. If you want to lump it with something, it would make more sense to me to lump it with FA. Or change the weekly FL slot to a permanent daily spot and rotate FL & GA in that section. Royalbroil 13:24, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. In a mature project like en.wp, DYK has stopped serving its original intent to encourage the creation of new content, but has instead turned article creation into a competitive timed rush. Allowing GAs to enter that slot adds fresh air to the system. Deryck C. 13:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support essentially per John Vandenberg, we should be putting more effort into highlighting improved existing articles rather than newly created ones. We could do this by sticking a GA section on the main page but I don't think we have the space. Hut 8.5 14:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I would oppose anything that appears to justify or prolong DYK's tedious twisting of facts into so-called "hooks", which more often than not are misleading or rely on misstating the sourced information in the article, or present the most banal information as though it would fit the type of revelation preceded in normal conversation by "Did you know..." Whether there is the material available in good articles to support this proposal as a way of redeeming this currently torturously poor and unprofessional element of the main page, whether this state of affairs is due to the restrictions DYK puts on the articles it sources, I am unsure: I suspect the key problem is the desire of those who are not skilled comedians to get main page attention for their "quips". Kevin McE (talk) 14:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, per all the other comments that DYK is about new articles, or newly expanded ones. If we want a GA on the main page all the interests involved are best served by giving it its own box. Daniel Case (talk) 14:38, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - Too restrictive. The GA nominations list already has a long backlog.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. When Wikipedia was young it made sense to incentivise the creation of new articles to help build the encyclopedia. Today, most important articles already exist, so our focus needs to shift towards improving existing articles. Putting GAs on the main page helps update our incentives to match Wikipedia's current needs. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:52, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support DYK is all about encouraging new content. New content is also added in improving an article to GA. However, the pre-GA article may be 7KB of unreferenced bad text, which expanded to 25KB of referenced, copyedited, sectionalized text. But sadly 5x DYK criterion is impossible to meet, unless the article is filled with WP:UNDUE (checking which is not a DYK criterion).--Redtigerxyz ^Talk 14:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Already saw DYK speedy process abused with a POV entry in a controversial article. So can easily see that happening in a Good article misued for partisan purposes. Need time for the community to look at DYK or the process WILL be hijacked by partisans on a variety of issues. CarolMooreDC 14:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support broadening the criteria, and would also support extending the time past 5 days, to reduce the temptation of copyright infringement by editors in a rush. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support yeepsi (Time for a chat?) 15:18, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Leaning support, even if only for the reason that it would improve the quality (speak, verifiability as the least standard) of DYKs. Actually, Kevin McE pretty much hit the spot with a number of issues of what is currently wrong with DYKs. So whatever will help to improve this I'll support it. Nageh (talk) 15:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I see nothing wrong with giving GAs prominence on the main page somehow, but DYK isn't really the best place for it. It's busy enough as it is, and has a clearly defined purpose (showcasing genuinely new content) that I don't think should be diluted. Anaxial (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose DYK is a positive process that requires creation and expansion. GA is basically a matter of clean up. It's kind of like equating childbirth and rearing to plastic surgery. μηδείς (talk) 16:46, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose DYK is an embarrassment. The possibility that this will improve DYK is very slight. DYK doesn't encourage new content. It encourages self-promotion and bad writing. It needs to be radically re-thought and this proposal does not contribute to that effort. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 16:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support DYK's current rules encourage quantity of articles, not quality. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I think its a great idea.--EchetusXe 16:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support DYKs as new content only should be phased out; we should be spotlighting the best content, not incentivizing new content any more. This moves it in that direction. The encyclopedia already has four million articles. --Batard0 (talk) 17:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support GAs definitely need a higher profile. Featuring them as part of DYK is a good way of raising awareness of them. Also, an article that passes GA has had more time to evolve into something more comprehensive. Paul MacDermott (talk) 17:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I have thought that this is a good idea for years. We currently have no way of promoting our GA articles to readers and this has a knock on effect in that editors are not so motivated to improve existing articles. If new GAs could be promoted on the main page then this would provide an incentive to improve core articles that are poor at the moment. To those saying that most GAs are already DYKs - fine, they should be excluded, but if an article hasn't been featured in DYK, why not do so once it is a GA? Opposes based on there being a lack of reviewers at DYK are not relevant IMO, since a good GA reviewer should review content more thoroughly than a DYK reviewer. If GA noms included a DYK hook that they would like to see used, then GA reviewers could pay particularly close attention to those facts meaning that the hook would be good to go if the article is promoted. This would actually decrease the workload for DYK reviewers. SmartSE (talk) 17:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per John Vanderberg. AutomaticStrikeout 17:43, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as a way to improve the content posted on the front page (I have a low opinion of much of the content often included in DYK), draw attention to some of our better articles, and bring diversity to the DYK clique. ElKevbo (talk) 17:52, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support My general impression of DYK is that it is the home of obscure factoids about things I've never heard of, that don't entice me to click on the links. Allowing GA's would increase the average noteworthiness of topics, at least, although I would rather see more radical suggestions for what to do with DYK's valuable real estate (like getting rid of DYK altogether, and moving the featured picture into that space.) Tdslk (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Ding ding - we have a winner! This is what this proposal is really about - it's a first step towards getting rid of DYK. I'm not averse to improving DYK, but this proposal is an ill-thought out perennial idea that the same few people have been pushing for a couple of years now. Prioryman (talk) 20:34, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• No, sorry, that is not the goal I had in mind when I proposed this. Being a relative newcomer, I merely summarised what I believed were the best suggestions so far, both for including GAs on the main page, and improving the quality of DYKs. I am a firm believer in the DYK process, and indeed many of my own DYKs have been expansions rather than creation myself.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 20:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(My guess is that it would probably make DYK harder to remove, since more people (those who focus on creating GAs) would have buy in. Plus, it would be better.) Tdslk (talk) 00:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC))[reply]

• Oppose Per Cbl62 and others. This proposal will dilute the DYK project. And 4 million articles is nowhere near what the goal should be, Wikipedia is still vastly under-represented in many fields. This is not the time to get complacent with regards to what the encyclopaedia covers. Manxruler (talk) 19:21, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tremendous point Manxruler. I do think there is a bit of a narrow scope being exhibit here by those who think that DYK needs to "move on" from new article creation. There are so many areas and subjects that Wikipedia has barely even touched (Africa, anyone?). Heck we even have an entire Wikiproject dedicated to the amazing amount of notable subjects that we still don't have articles for--including a hefty number of Science articles. If anything, we should be having proposals that shift DYK's focus more towards creating articles in these terribly under-represented area. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely - massive amounts of articles are still to be built. I also feel that once Wikipedia stops expanding, that's the beginning of the end. Once we say "this amount of articles is enough", and stop focussing on covering more ground, then that's it. Then we're just another web-based encyclopaedia - the fact that we are constantly expanding our range of subjects is what makes Wikipedia special. We have to keep moving forwards, we mustn't stagnate. Manxruler (talk) 21:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Manxruler but I don't understand your logic. Just take a look at how many of our Vital Articles are still C-class or (shudder) Start-class. Wouldn't improving all those to GA or better be an excellent way for Wikipedia to move forwards and avoid stagnation? How is creating new articles different to improving existing articles in this regard? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 02:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised this proposal lasted a whole six days before someone started doomsdaying the end of Wikipedia. – Steel 14:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adrian: But will really steering away from creating new articles lead to to a vast improvement effort? And how would the GA project be able handle such a hypothetical situation? I think not, I think it will discourage and drive away many of the enthusiasts we have today, the folks who aren't always cut out for the type of work required for the production of GAs. As for the improvement of the Vital Articles, I think a much better idea would be to launch an effort like the one we've seen at Operation Majestic Titan, rather than tearing down DYK. Manxruler (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Steel: Thanks for that. Manxruler (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Anyone who wants to make a Wikipedia article should be driven enough to make it worthy of being a good article. I would never say that 4 million articles is too many on principle, but in all honesty, a lot of them are crap. If there is a choice between doubling the number of articles, and doubling the quality of existing articles, I'd choose the latter. Connor Behan (talk) 22:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose So much unwritten. As this is the first step to dismanlte DYK it is the next step to stop article creation. Agathoclea (talk) 22:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is all part of a secret plot to stop new article creation... seriously? – Steel 14:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose As someone who has had little, if any, input on this topic, I feel that it would best serve DYK to keep GA's out of it. DYK is primarily about expanding or creating articles, and serves to drive that. GA is about improving on articles, and already has a drive to get that done. The two shouldn't interfere with each other. If people pushing for GA inclusino are looking for more recognition of GA ocntent, then there are other avenues to do so; adding them to DYK is not the way to go about it. Kaiser matias (talk) 22:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Encouraging quality articles is a good step forward. Insomesia (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support -- When I review Good article candidates, I sometimes think "Wow, this is really interesting!", and I think it is a shame that just because the information is not recent enough, it can't be highlighted like DYKs are. I think Wikipedia would benefit from having DYK articles that are of better (GA) quality. --Tea with toast (話) 00:05, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support This would be a great encouragement for people who work on improving articles to GA status. I see no reason to limit main page highlights to FAs and brand new articles. Reywas92^Talk 00:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment 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." What is happening here appears to be a bid by non-members of WP:DYK and WP:GAN to unilaterally redefine the scope of the two projects. As such, the original proposal lacks validity. WikiProjects can't be forcibly merged in the way that is being proposed here. Prioryman (talk) 01:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We're not talking about merging 2 wikiprojects here. This is about simply allowing a new GA to be eligible for DYK.--Tea with toast (話) 07:02, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tea with toast is right. WP:WikiProject Good articles is not the same as WP:Good articles. The GA institution belongs to the whole community, just like FAC and ANI. WikiProject Good articles would be unaffected by this proposal. The section of the WikiProject Guide that you want to be looking at is WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN, which is the bit that says a WikiProject doesn't get to tell the whole community what the community chooses to put on the Main Page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support A nice way to be able to showcase GA's - not all of us write FA's and GA's often go under-appreciated by the public and the community in regards to "promotion," so I think it'd be a nice way to showcase the work of GA editors and content with a simple gesture as this. And it's not like we are overflowing with GA's being created... so I don't find it a threat to DYK at all. SarahStierch (talk) 01:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support It will lift the standard of the front page and give GA writers a look-in. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: As per SarahStierch and Anthonyhcole. And I certainly don't think that we'll have to worry about NPOV issues if this rule is established; an article cannot meet GA criteria if its content has neutrality issues, in the first place. Like my singing? Ha-la-la-la-la-la-LA-LAAA!!! (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Anything that removes at least some of the nonsense from DYK has to be an improvement. We should showcase what we've done best, not what we've just done... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support GAs are more informative than DYKs --Anbu121 (talk me) 07:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Front page should showcase Wikipedia's best work...featured articles. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 08:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support The exact proposal as stated and no more. There would be no automatic featuring of a new GA, it would need to have not been featured on DYK previously and would still need to be nominated by the creator/expander and still require a QPQ of another DYK nomination. Furthermore in order to prevent GA reviewers from promoting the article and then immediately issuing a DYK nomination thereby getting around the QPQ review requirement and potentially creating an unfair burden on DYK - any nomination, for a GA on DYK (which was nominated because of the GA criteria) should require a QPQ review whether nominated by the original creator/expander or anyone else. Otherwise, DYK could potentially get snowed under in a week. Also, has anyone thought of a QPQ review system for GA in a similar manner to DYK? Miyagawa (talk) 09:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, QPQ has been thought of on GAN before but has been rejected as unworkable. Prioryman (talk) 11:26, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose We already showcase FAs as best work. GAs have nothing going for them, and, as the product of a single reviewer, easier to manipulate. The standards for DYK are already higher than for GA in most regards. Most importantly, there is no way that a GA will be promoted in five days. It normally takes over a month. One GAN has been unreviewed since May! Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the proposal is that new GA's be nominated for DYK within five days of being made GA's, therefore it wouldn't matter how long they sit in the GAN queue. A little like it doesn't matter how long an article sits in the DYK queue once it has been nominated. Gatoclass (talk) 11:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, that is correct...the only change is that newly promoted GA's are eligible to be nominated for DYK.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still makes no sense. Back in July I brought an article to GA that had been created in 2006. How would that qualify as one of Wikipedia's newest articles? Moreover, although it had never been a GA or DYK before, it had been on the front page as TFA. However, under your rules, it would have been eligible. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Well it would, but there would have been new content added to get it up to GA standard.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:31, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • None whatsoever. All I did repair the link rot. It should have gone to FAC instead of GA, but my FAC queue is over two years long. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:47, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Encouraging article improvement is good. The output of the GA process is so small compared with DYK that it is really not going to impact the workload or dilute the mission - all such arguments are invalid. SpinningSpark 11:40, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, as a regular GA contributor we do have quite stringent processes for reviewing GA nominations and then obviously before being accepted for DYK the usual review process is fine. Many articles when transformed into GAs end up being transformed drastically both in size and quality. As others have said... the GA encourages article improvement and the premise of DYK for GA articles is another incentive for article improvement. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 ^[talk] 12:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I do a lot of both DYK and GA, but I think DYK's interesting-fact, hook-based premise is incompatible with showcasing articles on well-known topics that become GA. Better would be to promote awareness of what the green GA symbol means when readers see it on an article. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• strong support - it is a lot harder to get an article to a reasonable standard, than start something new. And we need to encourage people to do completion work, rather than chasing more and more obscure stuff to begin.--Scott Mac 15:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong support- The DYK criteria need to be a lot stronger, and the oppose votes here seem to be based on a number of misconceptions. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 15:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongest Possible Oppose: DYK allows me to find something to do in my spare time. Without it, who knows what would happen... I can't support this, and never will. DYK is a valuable project, and I must strongly oppose getting rid of it's key principles. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose GAs meet basic standards of quality, DYK aspires to even agree on basic standards. I dislike the idea of mixing good work into a cesspool. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Would shift DYK's focus from its worthy goal of encouraging the creation of new articles. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • While encouraging the creation of article is a worthy goal, Wikipedia already has more than 4 million articles. IMHO, I think it is in Wikipedia's best interest to start expanding and adding new content to articles on vital topics rather than to encourage the creation of articles on frivolous content (TV episodes, pop songs) and irrelevant bits of random trivia. I feel that allowing some GAs into the mix would help make DYKs more relevant since they'd be on more vital and relevant topics. --Tea with toast (話) 23:13, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with you that we could use less pop culture articles at DYK, who is to say we wouldn't get flooded with GA's on frivolous topics as well? I don't see anywhere in this proposal that the scope would be limited to GA's on Core or Vital topics. Plus the fact of the matter is that we are still woefully lacking articles on many notable, encyclopedic subjects. DYK serves an important role in promoting new article creation and a much more worthwhile proposal would be one that encourages editors to overcome systematic bias and create articles on under-represented subjects like Africa and the the sciences. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, there's still a ton of article subjects missing from Wikipedia. A lot of major ones too from areas of biology, medicine, and general history. I mean, the history of pretty much anywhere that isn't the developed world is woefully not close to being completed. Silverseren^C 23:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, additionally newly promoted featured articles should be added as well. Upgrading an article up to GA or FA often requires a LARGE amount of work and addition of verified content to an article in order to elevate an article from start to GA, not to say the work needed to go up to FA. Just because the work takes longer than the time limit prescribed by DYA, or doesn't meet the 5 times rule, IMHO should preclude it from being featured in the main page via DYA.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Part of the intent of featuring content on the main page is to encourage editors to work in that area. Well making GAs is important and useful, too. Another intent of featuring content on the main page is to service the reader (and as side effect make up more popular) by making the main page enticing and interesting to read. Well GAs can certainly be interesting to read, and can certainly contain interesting tidbits too. More so than new articles in general, maybe, since after all articles have already been created by now for a lot of the most interesting topics. Herostratus (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is that the 'hooks' for GAs would be considerably more interesting than recent DYK hooks. A little known fact about a well known topic is intriguing - a mundane fact about some impossibly obscure topic is not. – Steel 19:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I Oppose. absolutely, the whole notion of rewarding each stage of article improvement with main page display. This encyclopedia is for the readers, not the editors' ego's. DYK is quirky and creative, FA is quality, GA is meh. Besides, there's always 5x expansion. Speciate (talk) 03:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. We already have a section for content that's been newly recognized as high quality — the FA section. This proposal blurs the purpose of the DYK section, which is to promote new content. There is no reason to expect a GA to have a significant amount of new content, it is more about polish than content creation. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Mixed opinion - I would support DYK eligibility for new GAs if this eligibility were limited to articles that were substantially expanded (but less than 5x) shortly before they were nominated for GA. This would allow DYK to accept nominations like Template:Did you know nominations/Poor Folk after the articles are accepted for GA, but it wouldn't give DYK eligibility to "old" articles that didn't receive any substantial content expansion to help them qualify for GA status. --Orlady (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditional Oppose: The basic function of a DYK is to give to readers something that they might most probably really not know. Hence "Did you know". Generally, GAs are the articles that have grown periodically, have been here for long, have been edited vastly and mainly gone through a GA review whose notification goes in many alert pages. Which means that many editors and non-editors too have been to the article and read it. The interesting-ness, hooky-ness of DYKs is lost here. Hence the oppose.
  But in case such thing has never happened, meaning people have not read the article before, i do not see any reason as to why it can not go in DYK. If the article traffic is low, it should be made eligible for DYK irrespective of how old it is. Now what is "low traffic" could be discussed. Actually in such cases, it's status of GA doesn't matter. But if we really want GAs to feature here, some correlation with traffic can be established and added as condition. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 08:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - I would not like to mix GA and DYK without a hint to the reader. I would rather go for showing TGA occasionally, Today's Good Article, because the Featured articles are sadly unbalanced, leaning (no surprise) toward places in English speaking countries, hurricanes, battleships and mushrooms. But that is not the topic here ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The main page has many sections and so it would be more sensible to have GAs listed in a separate section beneath the FA, forming a natural hierarchy - FA/GA/DYK. If space needs to be found then it would better come from the featured list section, which seems to have twice the space given to the other sections, as it spans the page, rather than being limited to one side. Warden (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose GAs do deserve a fair place in main page, but this idea seems a little odd. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 13:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - DYK has always asked to much out of new articles. --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 15:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support With Wikipedia at over four million articles, the focus of DYK should shift to encourage article improvement as much as it does creation. Adding a GA qualifier would help stimulate growth in this area. Also, GAs as it stand right now are rather unappreciated site wide, in favor of pushing editors towards FA instead. While featured article status should of course remain a goal when possible, celebrating other milestones in article improvement is a great step towards keeping editors motivated and productive. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 17:18, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. It's a good way to call attention to the quality we can achieve, and to highlight articles general readers might find more useful than some of our more recherché DYKs. Readers don't care when and how the content was generated; they just want to discover good stuff that's new to them. I dislike the "five days from creation" deadline in the first place: it has excluded some very interesting articles by less-experienced editors or students working on class projects who aren't part of the in-group and who need more time to get up to speed, and it's caused me to postpone starting some new articles I thought had DYK potential, because I'd want more time before nomination. By including GAs, we give more slowly developed articles a second chance at attention, and encourage quality. I tried to take "oppose" voices into consideration, but frankly I don't see any "opposes" from the perspective of reader service. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The main page should be designed for the benefit of our readers and if GAs can contribute facts that people might not know and might actually want to know, which I think would be much better criteria than simply being new articles, all the better. I can see the point in showcasing newly-added content, but I don't see why this has to come from new or hugely-expanded articles. --Michig (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong support. Having watched too many of my mediocre new articles get a touchup on wiki-code, only to be posted to DYK by an editor with no sense of "newsworthiness", I see little use in the DYK system anyhow. I cannot see how anyone can object to posting WP's better work, which has been extensively edited, in place of feeble Stubs and Starts newly created. Our better work stands more chance of drawing readers into the site than the present DYKs.Georgejdorner (talk) 21:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support DYK is too narrowly focused onto what has become a bad direction, so that now we got more and more articles about less and less notable topics, while important articles which readers would actually be interested in remain in poor state. It is time to shift incentives towards article improvement. This is a minimal proposal, which would be a small step in the right direction. --ELEKHH^T 21:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as GA creep is undesirable. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. If we are going to highlight content on the Main Page, why not highlight some recent GAs, which show off content that we can be proud of? -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Oppose. If people want GAs on the main page, make that an entirely separate process. The criteria for GAs have almost nothing in common with the criteria for DYKs, except to the extent that both of them ought to meet normal wiki requirements - notability, lack of copyvio, decent references, coherent English, lack of major inaccuracies etc., without any of the violations that are normally considered OK in older articles. (People accept poor references; incoherent, ungrammatical, misspelled writing, etc. etc. in articles not linked directly on the main page.) Kobnach (talk) 05:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. There are a huge number of GAs covering a wide variety of subjects - if DYK is meant to showcase new information, then displaying a variety of recent GAs can only add to that. Moreover, readers who follow the DYK links would then find articles of a much higher quality than the average new article. Michaelmas1957 (talk) 06:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. DYK is to showcase the newest of what Wikipedia has to offer. FA is to showcase the best of what Wikipedia has to offer. Do we need to also showcase the second best of what Wikipedia has to offer? We already award people (by showing their work on Main Page) for starting the process of writing great articles (DYK) and for completing it (assuming FA is about as good as it gets), but do we need to award them for all the milstones in between as well? — Kpalion^(talk) 06:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The purpose of DYK is to showcase new work. Getting an article to FA status is extremely valuable new work, and is very much something we should be promoting and encouraging people to do. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Great idea. There are great bits in GAs and typically much of the rest of the article is also well written. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The effort to create a GA is much higher than that required to create an Article for DYK. As result, we would have less articles on the main page in the DYK section. Maybe only one, as is the case on Wikipedia Italian, where this proposal is already implemented. The purpose of the DYK section is to show interesting new articles to the public: adopting the GAs, we have a duplicate of the featured article Window, and the goal of the DYK section is lost. Alex2006 (talk) 13:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. People seem to be ignoring the fact that GA status would be optional. So we're basically increasing the number of applications to DYK, but not necessarily increasing the output volume. Besides, GAs are pretty under-featured, and this would be a nice way to get them some traffic. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 14:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• If you're increasing the number of nominations, you're increasing the output volume. GA's are less likely to be rejected, so the number of articles reviewed and approved will go up. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - I've never really understood why DYK was restricted to new or recently 5x expanded articles - GAs showcase quality work and placing them as part of DYK would get them the exposure they deserve. CT Cooper · talk 18:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, with the caveat that a newly minted GA must not have already appeared on DYK. Many GA topics have no prayer of making FA because of problems with coverage in reliable sources, and for other reasons. This will give one final nod to the hard work that went into bringing the article successfully up to GA quality level. Binksternet (talk) 19:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• That would happen, as it is already a criteria for any DYK, for example a 1500 character article that is later 5x expanded would not be eligible.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 19:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Now I'm torn - Promoting an article as Good Article should not be counted as new, but everyone's supporting it. Now I stroke my vote for opposition because supporters have good points. However, I'm not supporting it just because it is a "good way" for the DYK. 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). --George Ho (talk) 19:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support As someone who has done both (3 GAs, 27 DYKs), it makes so much sense to add value to DYK by greatly improving the quality. Let's think about the readers, folks, not about the feelings of us editors. We are writing solely for them, and this proposal adds to Wikipedia's overall value for the reader. First Light (talk) 20:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. DYK is already overstuffed with nominations as it is. I've seen quite a few interesting new articles in the list of expired noms. Instead, I would suggest to create "FA Log" and "GA Log", and link them prominently from the main page. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support – people will be encouraged to work in GA area. — Bill william compton^Talk 13:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose DYKs are, in my opinion, to encourage editors to create/improve articles to a least start-class standard, which at least helps to remedy the stub pages problem (anybody have an idea of how many of the 4 million articles we have are stubs?). By adding GA-articles here, we would make it confusing for the readers- why is there so large a gap in quality between one entry and another entry in the same section?, for example. This would also greatly devalue GA articles as they would now be associated with Start-class articles. Let us have a separate section to honour GAs; I think that is the least we could do to acknowledge the hard work put into GA articles. At the same time, DYKs would continue to encourage editors to improve on interesting articles to give more quality information to our readers.--Lionratz (talk) 14:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Good articles are pretty good... good way to highlight the work. Shadowjams (talk) 20:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The proposal is to add newly listed GA articles to the qualifying criteria for DYK. The nomination doesn't need to involve the GA reviewer or the GA Wikiproject, and would (presumably) be a decision made by any editor who feels the article meets the criteria and would be interesting on the main page. The nomination could be made by a contributor to the article, the GA reviewer, or any interested reader. While some GA contributors may feel that having improved the article to GA standards is enough, there may be some who feel they would like the article (for whatever reason) to be briefly mentioned on the main page. The proposal does not appear to impact on the GA process at all, and would be a decision made separate to that. The impact of this proposal lies largely (entirely?) on the DYK process. As this proposal came out of a concern that the DYK process is under strain and letting through poor quality articles, then this proposal appears not to be helping relieve that strain, but to increase it. The proposal does not get the benefit of experienced GA reviewers, but simply increases the work load of DYK reviewers who would now have more nominations to work through, and the extra nominations would be of articles that often require 20-30 minutes simply to read through once at a 75% comprehension level. Even if the proposal is that DYK reviewers do not need to read or check the articles - they are simply waved through as already having been through a satisfactory audit - there is still work to be done on processing the article and in checking the hook. I don't see this as an advantage to DYK - simply extra work. The alternative proposal to have a separate process for listing Good Articles on the main page may be a more worthwhile consideration. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - Per SilkTork. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 08:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Having your content appear on the main page is a major incentive for editors. I'd like to see us use that incentive more effectively to encourage the expansion of existing articles. Right now we're using the main page as an incentive for expanding existing articles only if you can get the article up to FA, and that can be a huge, scary goal. Offering this recognition to new GAs seems like a good way to get more editors to think about what it would take to get an article through GAR. With 4 million+ articles we should be focusing our efforts on improving what we have and the best way we can do that is through incentives. GabrielF (talk) 02:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - also, per SilkTork. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 04:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per First Light. Graham87 10:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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]

• 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]

Now in Queue 1, Leiden Glossary, I read Sankt Gall, linked to Abbey of Saint Gall, in German Fürstabtei St. Gallen. The name of the Place is St. Gallen in German, possibly St. Gall in English? The combination of a German Sankt with an English Gall looks strange to me. In the abbey article I read that it is a religious complex. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Too complex, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

St Gall is the traditional English name. Johnbod (talk) 10:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"St Gall" is the traditional English name of the Saint. I would understand "St. Gall" (short for Saint Gall), but not "Sankt Gall", see above. Many abbeys are not named for a Saint, but for a place, for example Eibingen Abbey. So is this, at least in German, St. Gallen. However, the Unesco said "Convent of St Gall", it would make sense to me to move the article to that name, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Even if we don't move, I think a couple of redirects could be helpful. bobrayner (talk) 14:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I took the discussion further, quoted

• "Convent" is only properly used for communities of nuns in English. UNESCO's English translations are very often bad, and are of no consequence whatsoever. Johnbod (talk) 15:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• If that is so - and it looks like it - why not Abbey of St. Gallen as the article name, to correspond to the original? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

?? That is mixing English and German just as much as "Sankt Gall"! The current name is correct, following WP:COMMONNAME. Johnbod (talk) 15:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

May I know who is using that name? - You are right, my suggestion was not good, the construction matching Eberbach Abbey - indeed mixing German and English, instead of Kloster Eberbach - would be St. Gallen Abbey. We can't help that the original name refers to a place not to the Saint, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

end of quote, ideas? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Did you know nominations/Schloßborn should not have been passed. Almost the entire article is uncited. It does not look like the reviewer checked that the article was fully sourced. As this is one whole section, this strikes me as incredibly problematic. I would reccommend front page pulling. --LauraHale (talk) 08:34, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Look again, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:46, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Review remains unchanged to say "for German-language source.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 3:26 pm, 8 October 2012, last Monday (4 days ago) (UTC+11)". Review does not indicate anything was checked beyond German sources. The reviewer didn't indicate they checked that the article was fully sourced. It doesn't actually look like the reviewer checked anything before passing. they gave it a AGF tick, not a green one. If the reviewer only reviewed the German sources, then the person who moved it to the prep area was in error. This article was clearly NOT DYK eligible at the time it appeared. --LauraHale (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: 1) If you have foreign language sources you can never give a green tick. 2) Articles in the German Wikipedia - like the model for this one - typically come without inline citations, they are sourced to books and/or other literature. 3) In the article, you added "citation needed" tags for the location on a map, I don't understand that. - By "look again" I meant at the article, sorry if that was unclear, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can give a green tick if you understand the sources! Secretlondon (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I wasn't precise, by "foreign" I meant a language I don't know, like Norwegian, accepted AGF today ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the posts hither and yon about what Hizzoner J Wales opines about DYK. Has he ever submitted an article of his own for DYK consideration? Has he ever jumped in and done a review of someone else's? There's nothing like baptism by immersion. — Maile (talk) 18:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo and writing content is rather like eating marmite with ice ceam. For somebody seemingly passionate about building an encyclopedia his interest in writing is very minimal. Writing is left to the "lesser folk" who build the website he dictates, solely founded, is chairman of. I believe he does occasionally add bits to articles on controversial people/topics and he did once write an article on a restaurant somewhere in Zululand which the lesser folk tried to delete, so he does do something every now and again to add to wikipedia... Don't get too excited though; the lesser folk built it up and promoted it to GA to impress their beloved master, Jimbo's article contribution was roughly 275 bytes. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo does have a DYK credit at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 28#Did you know. If memory serves, Jimbo started the restaurant article as an unsourced single sentence and a flood of volunteers jumped in to bring the article up to DYK standards within 24 to 48 hours. The DYK nomination was made by a third party. --Allen3 ^talk 21:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He had sources for his one sentence, two of them. Bare URLs both. Perhaps that was the role model for why DYKs can't have bare URLs. — Maile (talk) 22:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the same article as I mentioned above. Shows a real passion for writing eh? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a little unfair. This was his first new article. No copyvios, at least. No sources, though, and a distinct whiff of WP:OR.  ;-) Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfair is that the foundation get paid and are capable of raising over $20 million yet the people who really produce the goods get not a cent and never even the smallest word of thanks annually from Jimbo. Not even a yearly email thanking contributors.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I read that when someone's article is featured on wikihow they get a personal message from the founder and a gift of some sort. Ryan Vesey 15:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What's wikihow? Certainly doesn't happen on Wikipedia. Malleus Fatuorum 00:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.wikihow.com – "wikiHow is a wiki based collaboration to build the world's largest, highest quality how to manual." Prioryman (talk) 00:39, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a wikimedia project, but it runs on mediawiki. It's a wiki Collaborative how-to manual. It actually wasn't the founder who sent the message though, it was a community support person, but it still seems like a good idea. Ryan Vesey 00:40, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We still have many older hooks that need reviewing, since the newest seem the most popular. Plenty to choose from, including a couple of Gibraltar hooks that are actually located in the special holding area at the bottom of the nomination page, but which you can get to using these direct links.

• August 9: Template:Did you know nominations/Loring Air Force Base, alert crew, mole hole, christmas tree (aviation), Loring Air Force Base Alert Area, elephant walk (aviation), Minimum Interval Takeoff (a seven-article hook)
• August 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Barad, Syria
• September 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Naroda Patiya massacre - being reviewed by Crisco 1492. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:55, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• September 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club (Note: Gibraltar hook; will need two full reviews.)
• September 11: Template:Did you know nominations/The Tuesday Club
• September 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Melvin Tumin
• September 17: Template:Did you know nominations/Katie Hill, Clare Nott, Sarah Stewart (basketball) Reviewed by Yoninah. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:55, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• September 18: Template:Did you know nominations/Cheers (season 2)
• September 21: Template:Did you know nominations/The Rock Hotel (Note: Gibraltar hook; will need two full reviews.)
• September 22: Template:Did you know nominations/Honiara, Honiara Solomon Islands College of Higher Education, International School in Honiara, University of the South Pacific Solomon Islands (a four-article hook)
• September 22: Template:Did you know nominations/Soviet Strike Reviewed by Rcej. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• September 23: Template:Did you know nominations/Shanghai Botanical Garden --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• September 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Grootegeluk Coal Mine, Waterberg Coalfield (a double hook)
• September 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Bird-voiced Treefrog, Hyla femoralis (a double hook)
• September 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Archdiocese of Râmnic Reviewed by Dahn. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• September 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Robert John Sholl
• September 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Write-only memory (engineering)
• September 29: Template:Did you know nominations/Haseo Reviewed by Daniel Case. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• October 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Crusade for Freedom Reviewed by Bloom6132. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• October 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Parable of the sunfish Reviewed by Poeticbent.

Please cross these off once you have reviewed them. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When I read the hook "... that the Canon EOS-1D X is a full-frame flagship model for Canon?", it reads to me like an ad, rather than simply descriptive. (I'm also dubious as to whether it qualifies as "interesting", another DYK requirement.)

Both the reviewer and the promoter would seem to disagree with me on this, the former explicitly, so I wanted to check with other people to get their opinion rather than be precipitate and pull it just on my opinion. Thoughts? BlueMoonset (talk) 15:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - too promo, uninformative and bland. Should never have been promoted. (That's why for the separate nom EOS-1D C I suggested a 138-character hook which included its actual contribution to the state of the art, and astounding price, sans lenses.) It's not called Did you read my promo, it's called Did you know --Lexein (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the other Canon hook is too promotional, not I'm not sure what to do with it. Do we actually want these on the front page?Secretlondon (talk) 17:33, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Here's the one I meant: ... that the Canon EOS-1D C is the world's first 18.1 megapixel DSLR camera capable of shooting 4K resolution video, and costs US$15,000 (body only)? - I thought it took the wind out of the promo ... I could be wrong. --Lexein (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Hooks dealing with commercial products/services always walk a fine line. We do not want to be used as a mechanism for advertising but would not be fulfilling our encyclopedic duty if we ignored the existence of many well-known brands and products. Where do we draw the line? Do we exclude consumer products while routinely featuring hooks dealing with entertainment offerings such as recently released/upcoming music, television shows, and movies?

As for the hook currently in Prep 2, I an not a fan of the hook but I am also not troubled enough to raise an objection. I use a literal interpretation of the hook that indicates the product in question is currently the lead/most important offering within a significant class of cameras by a well-known camera manufacturer. Many hooks use facts that are of interest primarily to fans of moderately narrow fields (e.g. sports hooks that require an understanding of the sport to fully understand the hook). This hook seems to fall into this category. That being said, I agree with Secretlondon that most of the proposed hooks for the other Canon nomination push too far toward advertising by focusing on product features. --Allen3 ^talk 22:35, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think advertising is a real problem. I mean, do we want a non-hooky hook on the front page so we can be part of the hype over a movie release? It's just free advertising. Secretlondon (talk) 11:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The other problem is that there's very little differentiating the two? three? simultaneous product releases, or the articles are written indistinguishably. --Lexein (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would have appreciated to be notified about this, but anyways I am just going to say that I in no way am trying to make a certain companies camera's look better than another nor promote the product for purposes of advertising. Do note how I am working on one nikon camera in my sandbox and another was just promoted to DYK today. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 01:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, nobody's on your ass, or claiming you're being promo. It's a serious question: what are the damn differences between the Canon gaggle? At least two are $15K, with no obvious differences! I'm of a mind to suggest that that family of *-? cameras get a single page, rather than separate, nearly identical articles. Especially since they're introduced at the same time. Sorry. --Lexein (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I never said anyone was on my "ass", I just wanted to put that out there. There are a few differences between the articles. For starters, there are a few big differences between the cameras. "At least two are $15K" - The Canon EOS-1D C is $15k, the other is a cheaper knockoff with less features which costs around $6K. The biggest difference is that one is a 4K resolution (4096 x 2160 pixels) Full-frame DSLR which has never been introduced before. By "introduced" I don't know if you mean released or announced. Either way, they are not being "introduced" at the same time. I am not a camera expert, I know nothing about these camera's except for what the sources say (which I wrote onto the article of course). Having a list of all X (in the case, Canon) cameras would just not work. :) -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 21:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was wrong about the prices. But the feature overlap (or differences) are not clear. I don't much care about that, really. What I wanna know is this: is my longer 138-character hook more, or less, promotional? If less, why not use that one? I don't want credit, btw. Whatever. --Lexein (talk) 00:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mentioning a specific price strikes me as quite promotional. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, from an editorial point of view, you've done Gibraltar to death. Gibraltar, while an interesting place, constitutes just 6.8 km² of the Earth's surface. It's time to give the other 510,071,993.2 km² it's fair share.

Second, the whole Gibraltarpedia thing is a disgrace. I can't believe we're still running Gibraltar DYKs.
--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 13:30, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Second, the whole Gibraltarpedia thing is a disgrace. I can't believe we're still running Gibraltar DYKs."

Why exactly? Because you resent the fact that several people are obviously being paid for their involvement with it, or because wikipedia's information content has dramatically improved for such a small place which you can't handle? Love it or loathe it nobody can really deny that the coverage of Gibraltar is improving with many new interesting articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• If you have another 6.8 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi) you'd like to write about? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As long as all the articles are within policy and do not try to push any point of view, I don't really see the problem. If you really want more variety, try generating more hooks of other topics. Cambalachero (talk) 13:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Why should we do anything? As long as Gibraltar-related articles pass our standard criteria they should be promoted to DYK. The ultimate goal of their creation may not have always been encyclopedic, but our treatment of the issue should not deviate from its encyclopedic focus. Statistically, the frequency of Gibraltar-related DYKs isn't that much different from other subjects, however, the issue has been overhyped and news articles don't reflect the facts and their context. That being said, Gibraltar-related queue management and distribution has been sensible enough after the publicization of the issue.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 13:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree that there are a lot of Gibraltar DYKs. But, do you know what's even more tiresome than the Gibraltar DYKs? All the complaints and the hand-wringing about them. IronGargoyle (talk) 14:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree about the tiresomeness of the complaints. There's a lot of really good work going on to improve our coverage of this city, which has resulted in a lot of good content being produced. A.B. should show more respect for others' contributions. Prioryman (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Prioryman, self-serving statements are not actually more tiresome than anything else. There have been far too many Gibraltargate DYKs put through—a ridiculous number. And Australian olympic and paralympic articles. It's time to call a halt to this product placement and topic skew on the main page. The fact that you have a CoI with respect to Gibraltargate didn't occur to you? Tony (talk) 00:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to revisit this argument because I know you're not persuadable (as your puerile "Gibraltargate" term shows), but for the record, no, I don't have a COI. Prioryman (talk) 00:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep it tidy boys, I've been blocked for much less than "puerile". Tony is quite right though, why on Earth do all these articles have to go through DYK? Malleus Fatuorum 00:57, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

... unless it's promotional, which of course it is. Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why shouldn't they? They're all fine articles, well written and with good photos, and people have gone to a lot of trouble to produce them. As long as they meet the DYK criteria, there's no reason why their quality and their contributors' efforts shouldn't be rewarded. There's no urgency about running them (with one exception I'll come back to) so spacing them out won't be a problem. Did anyone ask "why do all these Olympic/Indonesia/mushroom/racehorses articles have to go through DYK?" No, they didn't, and there were far more of those. In any case, I anticipate that the number of articles being produced is likely to tail off within a few weeks, as many of the low-hanging fruit have been picked already. As for "promotional", that argument has already been dealt with and left in the trash can where it belongs. Prioryman (talk) 01:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Malleus: Because the sales pitch to paying clients was that they would get content featured on the main page of Wikipedia, and clients were told that there was value in being so featured. Duh.Dan Murphy (talk) 01:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"You may well be right, I couldn't possibly comment." Malleus Fatuorum 01:36, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The whole DYK process got screwed up when we started allowing self-nominations. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how that's relevant when the vast majority of these nominations aren't self-made. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else complaining that self-nominations are bad. Prioryman (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I am complaining. It is self-gratification. 96% of DYK's make me say "huh? so what?", rather than "whoa!" I stopped reading them half year after I joined wikipedia. I made several nominations (non-self), and none of them passed (not even rejected; simply ignored). I guess everybody was busy pushing Gibraltar. "Did you know ... that Earl of Gray died of podagra?" Really, now. "..."A Change Is Gonna Come" was the first episode of Grey's Anatomy in which Isaiah Washington did not appear?" Wow! I didnt know and now I know. For the nearest 3 minutes. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When was there a time when self-nominations were not allowed? The second nomination DYK received was a self-nomination.[2] --Allen3 ^talk 21:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Too bad. BTW, did you read the thext you linked? just follow the rules, try not to be boring or provicinal and, oh yeah, follow the rules. :); ... (don't want to add it myself since I wrote it) It was good and now well ignoed advice abour "boring". Staszek Lem (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we of course should make efforts to have as exciting/interesting hooks as possible. However, it has been stated multiple times that "boring" isn't really an objective term. What's boring for one person might be exciting or captivating for another. I, for example, find computer-related articles extremely boring, and the hook you mentioned with nobility dying of podagra made me go look in the archives (couldn't find it - perhaps a joke reference?). And I don't it is fair to blame the Gibraltar hooks for to fact that Write-only memory (engineering) is stil needing a rereview (it's not been ignored, see further up this page). Manxruler (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• See User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Gibraltar.2C_again. AndreasKolbe JN466 09:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two things which are starting to bug me. a] The belief that all Gibraltar DYKs are somehow degrading wikipedia and all contain adverts saying "Come to Gibraltar". b] All of the canvassing that is going on, especially by you Prioryman. I'm happy to do the odd review but please don't keep asking me to review and comment on things. Unless you start paying me of course hehe...♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone take a second look at personal relationship skills (currently in Q2)? It was passed by very new reviewers, and I think it needs someone experienced to have a look at it. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's certainty interesting material for an Encyclopedia of all knowledge. Sasata (talk) 04:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"<good faith quote was a copyvio - removed by Franamax>"

Oh dear, that one really should be brought back for another look. There are some issues there. It has got me thinking about thinking though. The Interior (Talk) 04:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Eek, shouldn't that be in some sort of deletion queue or other? It sure looks like synth and OR to me. Well, not the book copyvio bit about Love which I removed from both the article and Sasata's quote above (correct me if I'm wrong, page 223 if my book search worked) - that was someone else's rather airy work. Should at least be pulled from the DYK queue IMO. Franamax (talk) 05:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pulled, feel free to comment at the nomination page. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have commented at the nomination page.

I am transcluding one comment here as well, to respond to the reviewer's comments above and show a humble apology for transgression due to over-sight.

• Responding to reviewer comment above: I have reworded the paragraph entirely from the source. Please comment if this is still too airy-fairy, it can be re-worded again.

"Loving well is a gift which people can delight in. Loving another person well enriches both - the sum of the two halves adds up to more as a whole. The hope for a joyous future together can allow a partnership to overcome seemingly intractable obstacles which come their way.

<ref name=St_AC_of_Grayling1>{{cite book|last=Grayling|first=A C|authorlink=A_C_Grayling |title='''Ideas That Matter'''|year=2010|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|isbn=978-0-7538-2618-8|pages=315}}</ref>

If the above is ok then I will add it to the article. ♥ VisitingPhilosopher ♥ ^{talk ◊ contribs} 14:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to delete this transcluded comment if this is not the right place for it (and the comments should all go on the nomination page). ♥ VisitingPhilosopher ♥ ^{talk ◊ contribs} 14:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a nomination that is time-sensitive, as it's intended to run on 21 October (this Sunday) to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Could someone possibly review Template:Did you know nominations/Trafalgar Cemetery in good time? Thanks in advance. Prioryman (talk) 06:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ack, another Gibraltar DYK. Binksternet (talk) 09:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This whole idea that Gibraltar DYKs are "limited" to appearing once a day (!!!) on the Wikipedia main page is ridiculous. Even in the August period that attracted the negative press coverage, and the unfavourable comparisons to the Olympics, there were only 17 Gibraltar DYKs in the entire month – one every other day, and a volume Jimbo rightly called "absurd". And now we are running 6 in the space of 6 days, and will run another 14 over the coming fortnight? Nuts. AndreasKolbe JN466 10:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No "once a day" frequency was agreed at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options - the only reason we've had a run of articles appearing recently because we've been dealing with a backlog that built up during the options discussion. That backlog is now almost cleared. And nobody is suggesting "running another 14 over the coming fortnight". The articles are in the review queue, but they can be spaced out. Most have not even been reviewed yet and none are time-sensitive, with the exception of the one I've highlighted above. I would anticipate them appearing over the course of several weeks, assuming they pass the reviews (which I'm sure they will, as I wouldn't have nominated them otherwise). Prioryman (talk) 12:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quote: "No more than one Gibraltar hook promoted to the front page per day". That is what it says on that page. You have run 6 over the past 6 days, so I do not see any evidence whatsoever that you intend to space them out any more than your rule requires you to. On the contrary! Two days actually had two Gibraltar DYKs, contrary to your own decision, and you are already hurrying reviewers above. 14 more articles are waiting on the DYK nominations page, and the Gibraltarpedia competition will no doubt lead to the creation of dozens and dozens of additional articles for the remainder of the year ... colour me surprised if you won't want all of them to appear on the main page too. Could you possibly care a little about the bigger picture here, rather than just your own project? AndreasKolbe JN466 18:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Read more carefully: "[Proposal] No more than one Gibraltar hook promoted to the front page per day. [Outcome] Alternative suggestion from one editor on limiting to one per set; another diametrically opposite suggestion for a stronger limit." There was no consensus on this proposal. Note that every other proposal other than a total moratorium (which was unanimously opposed) achieved a consensus - this one didn't. I don't know what you mean by "you", either, since I've not had any control over when the articles have appeared on the Main Page. As for the bigger picture, the bigger picture is that you're trying to reopen the whole issue again, overturn the outcome of the previous discussion – in which you didn't bother to participate – and blacklist an entire topic area. That isn't going to happen. Prioryman (talk) 18:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The agreement at [3] was predicated on the assumption that people would behave in good faith. It was meant as an upper limit and as a way of making sure that if you have 17 noms for a month you spread them out more or less evenly over 30 days. It was not based on the assumption that some people will abuse that agreement in bad faith, play WP:GAMEs and amp the product placement and tourism promo.

In fact, given how bad faithed the response to a reasonable compromise has been, I'd say it's time to place a total moratorium on Gibraltar related DYKs until things quiet down and the profit seekers chill the hey out. Even if that does hurt somebody's pocketbook or forces them to break whatever promises they made to the tourist board of Gibraltar. Volunteer Marek  18:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer Marek, there is no "profit seeking" and it's a flat-out lie to claim that the editors of these articles are motivated by profit. One of the most dispiriting aspects of this affair, if I might say so, has been the way that a number of editors have sought to belittle and bully fellow editors. This is just more of the same. Let's get specific; most of the DYKs I've nominated in recent days have been written by User:ACP2011, a relative newcomer who has been widely praised for writing exceptionally high quality articles (for which, indeed, she was awarded an "Exceptional Newcomer Barnstar"). She's already said that she is participating essentially for fun.[4] You have no possible grounds for accusing her of "profit seeking" and that is, frankly, a rather nasty personal attack. I invite you to withdraw it. Prioryman (talk) 18:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

it's a flat-out lie to claim that the editors of these articles are motivated by profit. - I don't know if that would be a lie or not, but that is not what I said. What is an implicit lie however is to suggest that I did, but hey, I'll chalk that one up as another misunderstanding. What I did say is that Gibraltar articles have been promoted (generally speaking) for profit. Which is true and verifiable. Volunteer Marek  21:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, there have been and still are too many Gibraltar DYKs. Editors here can apply their own justice by ignoring them, letting them scroll off the page into oblivion. Binksternet (talk) 19:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's simply not the case. As mentioned in a now-archived discussion, the number of Gibraltar-related articles appearing on DYK has been vastly outnumbered by those on other specific topics of interest. 120 articles on racehorses, 19 of them in the last 6 weeks alone. 300 articles on Indonesia in the last year. God knows how many Bach cantatas contributed by Gerda Arendt. Churches. Mushrooms. The list goes on. DYK's approach has always been that if an article meets the DYK criteria it should be accepted. There is no quota on the number of articles contributed per topic area, nor should there be. Prioryman (talk) 19:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

19 in 6 weeks? Yeah, that is a lot. But how about 6 in 6 days? When I scan the list of DYK nominations to review one of them, I often make note of the ones that I think are from a set that is too-heavily represented and I pass them by. I usually choose to review a DYK nom that is from some other set. Just sayin'... Binksternet (talk) 19:39, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I support a moratorium on any more Gibraltar-related DYKs for the moment. --John (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Likewise. No more Gibraltar DYKs submissions should be accepted until the end of the Gibraltarpedia competition. (Or if they are accepted, then only to establish eligibility for the extra 2 points in the Gibraltarpedia competition, but not to create an actual eligibility for the main page.) AndreasKolbe JN466 20:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • A moratorium was discussed two weeks ago and rejected unanimously. Nothing has changed since then. Prioryman (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Have we really had 6 in 6 days? That seems like plenty for now. --John (talk) 20:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've had no control over the timing (and in fact I questioned it here) but there is certainly no need for a one-per-day frequency for the remainder of the as-yet-unreviewed articles. They can be spaced out as people see fit when they've been reviewed. However, given that Trafalgar Cemetery has been written specifically for Trafalgar Day this Sunday, and has now passed its review, I think it's reasonable to request that it should appear on Sunday. Prioryman (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Prioryman, the one thing that is not reasonable is to request that yet another Gibraltar DYK run this weekend. AndreasKolbe JN466 21:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • There's nothing unreasonable about it. It's passed the review criteria, there is nothing COI or promotional about it, and it couldn't be more timely as it relates to a specific historical anniversary and a commemoration which is due to take place on the day. It meets every criterion set out in Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options. That was agreed to by a cross-section of editors. Overturning it now, when there's no ongoing external controversy, would be an act of very bad faith. The only reason this is even attracting controversy now is because of your incessant campaign here and on Wikipediocracy. You are keeping the issue alive when there is simply no need to do so. Prioryman (talk) 21:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • You are keeping the issue alive by wanting yet more main page appearances for Gibraltar, and it is becoming really hard to assume good faith here. Of course the articles themselves should be welcome, but not on the main page. Your insistence to the contrary is becoming quite impudent. AndreasKolbe JN466 22:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • Let me remind you, everything that has been done over the last few weeks has been as agreed at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options. You didn't participate in that discussion. You have no business now trying to bully and browbeat DYK contributors into reneging on the solution that was agreed. Prioryman (talk) 22:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • I certainly would have participated if you had advised me, or if the discussion had been here, rather than hidden away on a specially created subpage. AndreasKolbe JN466 08:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, we have had 6 in 6 days. See the discussion on Jimbo's talk page for the dates. There is another one on the main page right now, so I guess that makes it 7. AndreasKolbe JN466 21:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd support an absolute moratorium for up to a year. The lies by Prioryman and other Gibraltarpedia supporters - including a claim in this thread that "there is no "profit seeking"" (Perhaps there is no profit seeking by the DYK authors, but there absolutely are people who have a financial interest in getting Gibraltar to the main page on a regular basis.) have eroded any confidence I have that this project is compatible with Wipipedia's principles. Kilopi (talk) 21:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • A year is too long. I support a pause of a month or two without anything Gib-related on the front page. --John (talk) 21:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One a day is nothing. The press have moved on, we shouldn't be editing to press pressure anyway. Earlier today, we had 3 sealife hooks in one update, 50% of the hooks were on one subject written by one person - Wikipedia:Recent_additions#18_October_2012. There's two culinary ones in a single update at Wikipedia:Recent_additions#9_October_2012, and evil of evils - User:Miyagawa even had a Monmouth article on DYK today - The Crown at Whitebrook! Really not a fan of this "moratorium by the back door" approach after having that suggestion taken apart in the original discussion. - hahnchen 21:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One a day is too many. Who took part in the previous discussion? How were they informed? --John (talk) 21:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One a day? Yesterday we had 3 Millennium (TV series) hooks. - hahnchen 21:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am aware, Millennium (TV series) have not publicly been involved in a scandal regarding promotion via Wikipedia, whereas Gibraltarpedia have. I would still say more than one per day on any one subject is too many, but I would vehemently resist letting any more Gibraltar DYKs onto the main page for now. --John (talk) 21:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If getting the DYK credit is what is all important here than there is a simple, within the rules, way to do that, without spamming up the que - for articles which are all on related subjects you can do a multiple-article-single-hook nomination, which incidentally isn't subject to the usual word length restriction. That's usually what I do when I end up writing several articles on the same subject - just one nom, up to five articles. That way the issue of promotion will be at least muted. Volunteer Marek  21:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Enough already. I support an absolute moratorium for up to a year. Huldra (talk) 21:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • There should at any rate be a moratorium until the Gibraltarpedia challenge ends (it's currently set to end 26 December). And that moratorium should be for DYK nominations rather than main page appearances – because otherwise, there will be a backlog of 200 Gibraltar articles come New Year, and Prioryman & Co. will argue that they should all run, at a rate of one a day. AndreasKolbe JN466 22:23, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is complete and utter nonsense. Nobody is arguing that articles should appear on sequential days. The only reason that has happened in the last 6 days is (a) because the people promoting them (not Gibraltarpedia participants) have promoted them on sequential days, and (b) because there has been a backlog of approved articles waiting to be promoted. There is no backlog left so there already is no more likelihood of further sequential promotions. I have asked for one fully reviewed article to be promoted on Sunday. The rest have not even been reviewed yet. I've no idea when they will be reviewed, or when they will appear on the Main Page. I would think we're unlikely to see more than, at the most, a couple a week, if that. The idea that we are somehow going to have Gibraltar-related articles appearing every day from now till Christmas is a fantasy. There simply aren't that many articles, and the relative slowness of the review process means that they aren't going to appear on a very regular basis. Prioryman (talk) 22:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm afraid you misunderstood. If nominations for further Gibraltar articles are accepted now while Gibraltarpedia is ongoing, but are not run on the main page, then whenever the moratorium ends, there will be another backlog like the one we have just had, only much bigger. And we have seen what happens with backlogs: we end up with one Gibraltar article a day on average, like we have done for the last seven days, which have seen 7 Gibraltar DYKs. Gibraltar, a territory of 6.8 sq km, with less than 30,000 inhabitants, has truly had more than its share of main page appearances now. AndreasKolbe JN466 23:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • The answer to that is to not have a moratorium, which would be utterly unjustified in any case. Let the articles go through the review process normally, don't allow a backlog to build up and you will find that there will be a normal, low-frequency distribution of promotions. The recent high frequency has been entirely caused by the fact that we had a several weeks-long backlog to clear. Prioryman (talk) 23:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • The high frequency over the past four months has been caused by the fact that there is a competition underway to create articles on Gibraltar, initiated by paid agents of Gibraltar. It needed no backlog at all for that to create a media scandal. AndreasKolbe JN466 08:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support one year moratorium on Gibraltar DYKs. Cla68 (talk) 22:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, support one year moratorium on DYKs relating to Gibraltar (all topics), and also on DYKs relating to whatever country had more than 50 DYKs in the last year about that country's college sports (that moratorium only to affect all college sports from that one country, broadly construed). What say you? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose any moritorium and any attempt to one-sidedly change the consensus without obtaining a full new consensus. Do note that almost every responder in the above discussion is a member of Wikipediocracy, where said members have been discussing and criticizing this topic for a long time and have also made statements to each other on their website that are verbally abusive to a number of people involved in this topic. Silverseren^C 23:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not everyone who thinks this is abusive is from wikipediocracy, I can assure you.. Secretlondon (talk) 23:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I used a fair amount of shoe leather and library time to research, write and photograph for the article Moorish Gibraltar, which is in the DYK nominations queue and is a spin-off of the History of Gibraltar article I wrote several years ago. Please explain why it was "abusive" of me to write this article and why I should be deprived of the chance to show the quality of my work to Main Page readers. Prioryman (talk) 23:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Because you should be able to put Wikipedia's needs before your own in a case like this. AndreasKolbe JN466 08:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good to note. But when they are the majority of the above people in the discussion, it is concerning. I should also note that it's usually the people who have a negative opinion about something that are the most vocal about it. And the people who are neutral or positive often don't want to bother getting into a debate. However, when you run a poll, then the neutral or positive people feel fine about voicing their opinion, because they don't have to get into the endless arguments, they just have to state their opinion. Therefore, that's why when there was actually a poll on this issue, the overwhelming response was that people were okay with it. It's just the vocal negative lot here that are trying to bring up more drama that the people who responded before don't want to get involved with. Silverseren^C 23:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think if there's any cabal on this issue it's people connected to Wikimedia UK. There's been a major ethical bypass somewhere and I'm not sure they're saveable. Secretlondon (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Can I also propose that the one year moratorium should apply to the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas)? The similarities with Gibraltar are really rather substantial, and whether Bamkin has yet flown down to meet the penguins or not, we should take clear and harsh action before he can get any marketing tendrils in place. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sure its tourist board would love some main page space! Secretlondon (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• In the same spirit, I also propose a one year moratorium on (a) all articles on Bach cantatas, (b) all articles on mushrooms (40 since 1 October), (c) all articles on racehorses (19 since 1 September) and (d) all articles on Indonesia (300 in the last year). Prioryman (talk) 23:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, oh! And I also propose that we should all do an official RfC for them all together and let everyone know what we're doing. Silverseren^C 23:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Absolutely! The mushrooms in particular should be interesting, they've been running at a frequency of up to 3 a day since the start of October. Let's make sure that DYK's most prolific contributors are barred from contributing - it'll improve DYK no end! Prioryman (talk) 23:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• If anyone has been trying to sell space in the project for any of these.. Secretlondon (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, so Anne (ACP2011) has been getting directly paid to do this? Prioryman too? Or did you mean the Foundation was selling the DYK space? Silverseren^C 23:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know but nobody said she did. But someone has been paid for promoting Gibraltar articles and pushing them onto Wikipedia's front page. I really DO wish you guys stopped trying to be sneaky in the way you present the situation - you're arguing that just because the article writes themselves didn't get paid anything (except that chance to win the trip to Gibraltar) there's nothing happening here. But that's a classic lie of omission. The omitted part being that someone did get paid.

Hence, pointing out that what makes Gibraltar related DYKs different from articles on Bach, mushrooms or sea urchins or whatever is the fact that in case of Gibraltar there has been some for-profit-monkey business going on, but that is not case for the other subjects.

You know this, I know this, most everyone who's been paying attention for past few weeks knows this. So why this masquerade where you are pretending that no Gibraltar-related pay-for-promotion scandal happened?

Like I said on Jimbo's talk page, while this whole shtick has been weaselly and dishonest, and in violation of Wikipedia policy, it was done in a pretty smart way; putting the unpaid article creators as a human shield between Wikipedia policies and the people getting the money so that it can be argued "this isn't paid editing". But doing that with a straight face? Shame. Volunteer Marek  00:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's shoot this fox once and for all. Per http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/ , "It is co-ordinated by two Wikipedians, Roger Bamkin and John Cummings, who are working with Gibraltar residents to train them in how to use Wikipedia and add appropriate photos, etc to Wikimedia Commons; as well as adding QRpedia codes which link places and buildings in Gibraltar with their Wikipedia articles. Roger and John are being paid as consultants by the Government of Gibraltar to help deliver this project." Roger and John are playing no part in "promoting Gibraltar articles and pushing them onto Wikipedia's front page." I'm the one who's principally been nominating these articles in the last couple of weeks, and Anne (User:ACP2011) and Aymatth have been the principal authors. None of us are being paid to "promote Gibraltar articles", and DYK's rules mean that none of us, as authors or nominators, is authorised to put articles on to the Main Page in the first place. That is simply, completely, an egregious falsehood. Prioryman (talk) 00:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Roger certainly did play a part in promoting Gibraltar articles and pushing them onto the main page: that is how this discussion started four weeks ago on this page. Following the media scandal and Roger's resignation, and your trip to Gibraltar and meetings there a couple of weeks ago, you have taken over for him. (Mostly; he still does some Gibraltar editing.) Big deal. The fact remains that this is a project Gibraltar paid for. AndreasKolbe JN466 09:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I managed to split my trousers climbing the Rock of Gibraltar to photograph the fortifications for a forthcoming article (proof on the right). Do you think I can sell some project space to cover the cost of a replacement pair? Prioryman (talk) 23:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You should hand in an expenses claim to the Gibraltar tourist ministry. ;) I am sure they will look upon it favourably, given your loyal services to their agenda. AndreasKolbe JN466 09:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose any moratorium. The above negative comments were made by contributors who had ample opportunity to contribute to the previous discussions. I had stopped reviewing DYKs and submitting DYK nominations weeks ago, because of my disappointment with the DYK/Wikipedia community over this issue. I just started contributing again this past week by reviewing DYKs, when I thought that cooler heads had prevailed. I have spent a considerable amount of time the last few months volunteering, writing articles for Wikipedia. However, my children and I have used Wikipedia for years and I thought that it was time to give back. Gibraltar-related articles are already subjected to a substantially higher standard than other DYK nominations. It was the temporary blacklisting of the articles that led to the backlog and the one a day frequency of the past week. I expanded the article in question specifically for this weekend's anniversary and it has passed two separate reviews.Anne (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The proposed moratorium would also apply to all college sports teams in the USA (as the leading submitter nation of college sports DYKs over the last year), as proposed above. Not just the teams, huge money-making behemoths that they are, quite dwarfing Gibraltar - but also their coaches, athletes, players, managers, and all related topics, past and present, broadly construed. That includes U.S. college basketball, U.S. college football, baseball, do they play some other sports too? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose college sports: @Demiurge1000, While I think you have a completely valid point as the literature suggests that United States universities are essentially running professional sport teams at the Division I level and that name recognition and branding are essential to player recruitment and creating brand value, I oppose this because of its broad nature. I would support a broad general ban of all United States related hooks because the USA government is certainly getting its moneys worth out of the Wikimedia Foundation because of the Foundation's almost exclusive efforts to promote USA related work. Look at the education program they are promoting! It is all about getting USA students funded through the government to pay government funded entities to update articles of interest to the United States that clearly have business interest. Think of the dangers of these students editing important articles like Bacon. --LauraHale (talk) 09:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's also not overlook the commercial value of promoting Bach cantatas. After all, if people read about Bach cantatas regularly on the Main Page, that's probably going to encourage readers to go to music stores and buy them. Clearly the answer to that is to ban Bach cantatas from appearing on DYK. Prioryman (talk) 00:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support temporary suspension of new Gibraltar DYK nominations until the contest ends. If, after the contest ends, Gibraltar DYKs are proposed, they should be immune from the time-related eligibility requirements. This way we can still recognize the work without having the front page artificially flooded by people who are trying to rack up points in a game instead of improve Wikipedia in the normal way. Gigs (talk) 00:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Nobody is trying to flood the Main Page. The only reason we have had a relatively high number of articles on the Main Page in the last few days is because we have been clearing a backlog caused by the last moratorium. That's now cleared. No moratorium, no backlog. No backlog, no rush of articles. No rush of articles, no problem. Prioryman (talk) 00:28, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• How many more DYKs do you expect we'll see as part of the contest between now and the 26th? Gigs (talk) 00:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Do you mean nominations or Main Page appearances? If the former, I would expect probably one or two nominations a day for a few weeks. I don't know if that rate will be sustained though. If you mean Main Page appearances, I doubt that there would be more than a couple a week. It's completely unpredictable how long a review takes, and there are still (non-Gibraltar-related) articles from August that are in the nomination list. There certainly hasn't been a rush of people to review the existing nominations. Don't forget that per the earlier agreement, two reviews are required, so the process will take at least twice as long as it normally does. Realistically, we are likely to end up with a few dozen more articles which will end up being released onto the Main Page at a low frequency over the course of several months. The only way we would end up with another "flood" would be if a fresh moratorium resulted in a new backlog. Prioryman (talk) 00:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The competition is due to continue until Boxing Day, so it will run for another two months (65 days or so). If we have one or two DYK nominations a day, the overall number will be about 100, i.e. more than ten a week. I am not quite sure why Prioryman says this would result in "no more than a couple a week" ... that is certainly not the pattern we have seen. The idea of having another 100 Gibraltar DYKs is just preposterous, and I am frankly amazed that anyone can say with a straight face that having them would be a good thing for Wikipedia. AndreasKolbe JN466 09:20, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• • 100 more? That would be clear product placement. May I suggest one a week max? Tony (talk) 09:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Any type of moratorium. This is ridiculous. Either articles meet the criteria or they don't. There should not be any type of restrictions based on the topic; however, I'm willing to accept the one per day limit. (Note that I have never written about Gibraltar in my life) Ryan Vesey 00:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• We really need to organise what we're going to ban under the moratorium. Thus far, I have anything relating to Gibraltar, Morocco, or southern Spain (broadly construed), anything relating to "college sport" in the USA (including basketball, soccer, football, and other well known sports, but not less known ones), broadly construed, and anything related to Bach, including his music, orchestras that play or have played his music, his relatives, and any towns or cities or musical instruments with which he or his relatives or orchestras or musicians influenced by him have been closely involved. Also anything relating to mushrooms in any way. Or battleships. I think that should cover everything - it ends on what date? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you think comments like this are productive? Gigs (talk) 04:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes. How about you? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:12, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm going to agree with everyone! 22dragon22burn (talk) 03:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• 22dragon22burn is best voter. Silverseren^C 03:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Any type of moratorium. People who want more variety can write more articles. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Hey, you know what? That's exactly what I was told just over two years ago, when I had concerns about some sock wanting to write articles to skew public perceptions about Israel. And I did indeed write more articles to provide more variety, and somewhere along the way they got banned. I don't know why some people think this kind of thing is a huge crisis that they need to run to uncle Jimbo about. Unless, perhaps, he has ideas about Israel that we don't understand? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like the Gibraltar government are still getting excellent value for their money. Hack (talk) 05:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey you know what? It looks like an interesting little piece of land, slightly more interesting per acre then the Falkland Islands, but a lot easier to get to. I might write a DYK article or two about it myself, along with the parts of Spain I have to pass through to get there. (It will take me a while to establish notability for queues for car rental at Malaga airport, but I might manage it, and I think I have some photos to freely license. Luckily, thanks to travel guides that think Gibraltar is crap, I was wise enough not to drive the car into Gibraltar itself, so I have some photos of queues of that too... --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:32, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Any suspension of Gib-based hooks until new year at least. And none of this submit/backlog malarky either. They can be re-submitted after the suspension ends. Having 100 lined up and approved ready-to-go is just delaying the issue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • • @Only in death does duty end, Clarification on support question. Articles have a five day eligibility window where they can nominate. The articles cannot be re-submitted without being expanded five fold. Are you proposing they not be eligible period? Or that instead, articles are eligible but they all be put into a special holding area, where they can pile up and we can run several Gibraltar hooks a day starting after the new year? --LauraHale (talk) 09:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer waiving the eligibility period entirely due to this issue. If rules are going to be put aside due to the special circumstances, holding to some and not others is unduly punishing those who have worked hard on the articles. Avoiding pile-up as soon as any time-out period ends is the aim. Not removing them from consideration entirely. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• • Is there some humour here that I'm missing? Good-faith reviews being completed in a timely manner is "delaying the issue" how? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:12, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is too many. They continue to give Wikipedia the appearance of being in the pocket of the Gibraltar government, given the publicity over how they paid a high-ranking member of WMUK to subvert Wikipedia for their marketing purposes. Wikipedia can talk about how its all above board and the articles were created in good faith and so on, but thats irrelevant to how it looks to outsiders. The Government of Gibraltar is paying professional PR consultants, one of whom was until recently a high-ranking member of WMUK, to 'consult' on using wikipedia to promote themselves. Other editors (in good faith, although mine is being stretched to breaking point with regards to certain WMUK members with close ties to both Bamkin & Gibraltar) are nominating articles. A lot. It doesnt take a genius to connect the dots here. And the press are not full of genius, so we cant rely on them looking into the DYK process to see that its all above board. This is *hurting* the credibility of wikipedia as a whole and needs to be shut down until it blows over at least. The alternative is that perhaps the DYK process itself needs to be opened up under a spotlight to the wider wikipedia community, since its clear on this issue that its unable to self-regulate when it comes to blatant marketing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the project is to create a free online encyclopedia, not to create a particular impression in the minds of a press which is "not full of genius". The press can either learn what DYK is about or not, their incompetence or apathy is of no relevance to us at all. Besides which, the "wait until it blows over" approach is both (1) putting appearances over actual progress, and (2) plainly didn't work. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. In my opinion, the considerable number of high-quality articles about Gibraltar demonstrates the enormous potential of Wikipedia. I hope the same approach will be far more widely adopted and that we will see comparable coverage of many other towns and cities. The reason there have been so many DYKs on Gibraltar is that those writing the articles have obviously been motivated not only to research their subjects carefully but also to ensure the widest possible readership. Adopting a moratorium of whatever length would be unnecessarily demotivating not only to the editors currently involved but to all those who might become part of a QRpedia drive in the future. Gibraltarpedia has revealed how those working in the GLAM environoment can quickly adapt their expertise to building up Wikipedia-based coverage of their local community. I sincerely look forward to similar results from other parts of the world. Well done, all of you involved in the excellent Gibraltar coverage. From the start, I have read your articles with interest. Don't be discouraged by those who are attempting to diminish your success. And if DYK really does prove a problem, then I am sure many of the articles could be developed up to GA standard without too much trouble, and from there to FA. --Ipigott (talk) 09:19, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose It's quite normal for Wikipedia to have an organised focus upon some class of articles - every WikiProject has a goal of this sort. If a project is successful in generating enthusiasm then it's a natural consequence that DYK will see increased activity in this area. This is a good thing not a bad thing and attempts to stifle this are therefore disruption per WP:CTDAPE. Note by the way, that I have reviewed the article in question and so this section should be closed. This straw poll is an improper tangent and there is no consensus for it. Warden (talk) 09:39, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose moratorium, also I withdraw my previous suggestion of one per set, since frequency of appearance has been upsetting some, and instead I would agree with the limit of 1 per day as the previous discussion. We just have to keep the flow trickling through. Keep the conditions of the previous discussion with the double review and careful check. People have all sorts of motivations for writing articles, and that may not be pure knowledge distribution, but we can make use of these imperfect contributions by checking and improvements by others, Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Per Ipigott. A net plus for wikipedia, system of regulation of one per day is already in place.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support suspension of all Gibraltar-related noms until such time as the investigations into the operations of Wikimedia UK have been completed, the report has been considered, and action has been taken. Until that happens, WP is tainted by the suspicion that space on the main page has been, and can in future be, bought, and that is detrimental and damaging to the whole project. I feel sorry for the good faith editors who have been caught up in all this, but these things happen in life, and the overriding priority must be that trust in Wikipedia is re-established. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: While I oppose this motion as a draconian measure that is hardly in the interest of the encyclopedia and because it has already been discussed to a satisfactory result; I have severe reservations about Prioryman (talk · contribs) and his involvement in the issue. The canvassing, badgering and almost constant pushing and lobbying for Gibraltarpedia makes me very uncomfortable with his role in nominating articles, "reviewing" them or finding reviewers from them, and then forcing them down DYK's throat. There's a process here, let it take its course. I have nominations who've been sitting in wait for weeks, they're not controversial, they're not under any "special measures" but they still take time. Just let the bloody process take its course without trying to game it and walk away from the dead carcass. Almost all the newly promoted material had a review from Prioryman, which, in light of his heavy involvement in the issue, should be declared null, IMHO. Yazan (talk) 12:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article was nominated and approved for a DYK within a 2 day time frame. Unfortunately, the nominator did not (and could not have at the time) noted that I had made a substantial contribution to the page. I would like credit. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added you to the credits, after looking at the article history, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]