Portal talk:Organized Labour/Did You Know?

Did you know?
(Copied from Portal talk:Organized Labour)

Up till now we have only been using "DYK" entries that were featured on the main page at some point. Do we want to make this a more formal requirement? Or do we want to set up a small review process here? I'm asking because Portal:Organized Labour/Did You Know?/47 was just added, and I think we would be better off talking about this now rather than after more DYKs from the general article space start appearing.--Bookandcoffee 01:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought DYK was for items which had made it onto the "Did You Know...?" section on the front page of Wikipedia. My assumption was that our DYK section had a three-fold goal:  1) Make people visiting the Organized Labor Portal aware of content which Wikipedia had recognized, and 2) Encourage authors to write high-quality articles which could get recognized by Wikipedia and hence make it onto the Portal as well, and 3) Encourage more authors to participate in "behind the scenes" Wiki stuff (like submitting articles to DYK) rather than just authoring them. I would argue against "just any fact" making it into DYK.  First, the labor movement has trillions of great facts, but few of them are in well-written articles or were added to an article which has been significantly expanded (one of the DYK rules).  Second, if DYK were open to any fact, current events which have not yet fully played out (such as #47) would make it onto the Portal. But they might not come off, leaving readers with the impression that the current event is current when it is not.  Third, submitting to the "DYK" Wiki gods helps ensure that the article and DYK hook are of high quality (e.g., well-written, citations, in-line citation for the hook itself, NPOV, etc.).  This helps ensure that the content of this Portal remains high-quality as well.  Fourth, the best way to keep a Portal fresh is to automate it as much as possible. There are solutions to the three aforementioned problems, but they all involved real people actively looking at content on the Portal. If one of us gets a life, then the Portal goes stale and content quality suffers. Shifting responsibility for ensuring quality content to the DYK Gods alleviates Organized Labour participants from that burden. So, therefore, I'd argue against "just any content" going into this Portal's DYK section. - Tim1965 14:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I see advantages to both approaches, but, for me at least, Tim's seems better because it requires less work (at least less thought) on our part. Cheers.    H aus  Talk   14:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I will play devil's advocate against myself, and say that admitting anything to DYK has certain advantages. First, a great labor-related fact may be added to an article which otherwise gets no expansion.  Opening the Portal's DYK section to such facts is the only way to get such items noticed.  Second, the Portal can and will act as a site for all labor people, and as such current event DYKs can serve to alert the larger labor community to emerging issues or ongoing campaigns, negotiations, etc.  Third, Organized Labour is a developing Wiki community, and doesn't have a lot of high-quality articles yet.  Why deprive the Portal of interesting (even vital) information because of the "youth" of this Wiki community?  Fourth, a DYK hook can be as much a goad to others (so that they might help improve an article) as "Article of the Day," and yet the Portal has put no restrictions on what can make it into AOTD. - Tim1965 17:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm of a similar mind in that running our own DYK vetting program has merit - however, I agree with Haus, and I think Tim's point about it requiring live bodies to look at content is the pivotal issue. The project has a good number of people involved, but only a handful af active WP/Portal space editors and I think the DYK would end up languishing the same as Internationalisation and a few other sub-projects. And I really like the fact that the review done at the DYK project has no vested interest in LaboUr, and so avoids conflicts that we would have difficulty avoiding. As for current event DYK, I'd be more tempted to have an "In the news" or "Current Events" section separate from the DYK, but again, that's even more editing intense. (Only partly related - could a current tidbit be preset with an expiry date?)--Bookandcoffee 20:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Tied into this is the worry we have about inviting labo(u)r unions to write Wiki articles about themselves. That concern is that unions may end up violating NPOV and engaging in hagiography about their leaders. I would suggest that allowing "just anything" into DYK means that not-so-level-headed contributors might treat DYK as a "message board" for union issues—pushing the campaign-du-jour, some leader's political agenda, or the gripes of out-of-power individuals. How many of us have seen unions issue press releases about issues, and never follow up? How many of us have seen unions announce organizing campaigns, which never get mentioned ever again or produce membership? How many of us have seen unions announced "campaigns" on this issue or that, and the effort appears only on paper? You get the point. I worry that DYK would turn into a politicized aspect of the Portal. Some Portals have an "In the News" section, or a section which lists recent updates (which tend to be newsworthy). I would be much more willing to support that. - Tim1965 17:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, unless there's more to discuss, I'm going to remove #47 and reset the counter. I'll also put a bit of a notice on the Portal:Organized Labour/Did You Know? page about the relationship with the main page DYK; and copy this section to the talk page - in case someone wants to pick up the conversation down the road.--Bookandcoffee 15:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)