Template:Did you know nominations/Marrakech

Marrakech

 * ... that Marrakech (pictured) is the most important former imperial city in the history of Morocco?
 * Reviewed: Tauzieher
 * Comment: Please note that I intend to still work extensively on this and it still needs a lot of work but I'm nomming before the deadline. Please nobody review this until the 20th October.

Created/expanded by Dr. Blofeld (talk), Ipigott (talk), Rosiestep (talk), Nvvchar (talk),. Nominated by Dr. Blofeld (talk) at 20:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Drive-by comment, in spite of the request to wait until 20 October: This is still less than a 3x expansion. Much more content will be required to take it to 5x. --Orlady (talk) 20:21, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I removed unsourced/poor content and it got down to 8 kb it would have been even lower if I'd taken out the table first too. Then the expansion began, no, its easily x5 now. Its basically been almost entirely rewritten from scratch.♦ Dr. Blofeld  21:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I personally don't mind bending the rules as much as possible when it is justified, but in this case, it would have been way out of bounds. Just to remind you guys (quote): "A4: Fivefold expansion is calculated from the previously existing article, no matter how bad it was (copyvios are an exception), no matter whether you kept any of it and no matter if it was up for deletion. This may be a bad surprise, but we don't have enough time and volunteers to reach consensus on the quality of each previous article..." (end of quote; next quote) — Eligibility criteria: a) For DYK purposes, a "new" article is no more than five days old, b)... in which the prose portion has been expanded fivefold or more within the past five days..." (end of quote) — Last time before the expansion began the article was edited at 12:21, 7 October 2012. Five days after it began would be at 14:33, 12 October 2012 (one edit by Rosiestep on that date). I have used User:Dr pda/prosesize to count the difference. At 12:21, 7 October 2012, the article had roughly 1552 words of "readable prose size" or 9377 B (text only) according to Dr pda. At 14:33, 12 October 2012 (before deadline) it had Prose size (text only): 23 kB (3837 words) "readable prose size". You know the drill better than anybody else Dr. Blofeld. You helped the project with this one, but not the nomination for the front page exposure. Please don't feel bad, it's not personal. I'm an admirerer of your work. Poeticbent talk  03:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol question.svg I think this is a case where the rules may well bend sufficiently. There are innumerable precedents, many recent, where greater extensions were allowed nominators: we've been quite flexible over the past several months. In fact, I'm trying to recall one where we gave less than a week for the article to make good after it's nomination. In this case, it was over 5x within six days of nominating.
 * The expansion began no earlier than 19:02 on 8 October. Edits may have been sooner, but the first addition wasn't until then. The prose size was 9377, based on the size before pre-expansion cutting began, 12:21 on 7 October.
 * It's also advantageous to place the expansion at 08:29 on 9 October. That makes the actual nomination, on 14 October, within the five days; otherwise it's over 20 hours late. (The nomination needs to be made in the five days following the beginning of the expansion.) It does increase the prose size before expansion to 9908 characters, with the final edit before expansion at 22:13 on 8 October.
 * The size at the time of nomination was 24057 prose characters, either 2.43x or 2.56x expansion depending on which start day you choose. Four days later, the article had more than doubled in size to 48972 prose characters, either 4.94x or over 5x, depending. It reached 49868 prose characters (over 5x) a few hours later, wobbled back and forth across the 5x line over the day and a half following that, and settled into a full 5x+ expansion on 20 October, the day predicted in the nomination.
 * Orlady indicated on the 15th that there would be more expansion needed. I believe she was correct to say so, and reckoned that 5x needed to be based on no less than the pre-cleanup number. But the fact remains that the needed expansion was fully supplied within five days from her comment according to DYKcheck regardless of which base number is used; if expansion had been out of the question at that time, I believe she would have failed the nomination on the spot. (I'm going to ping her for a comment; I don't want to put words in her mouth.) BlueMoonset (talk) 01:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * This is exactly why DYK is problematic. You reject one of the better quality articles like this because of a "five day, five x expansion" rule. Its absurd, it really is. This rule punishes better quality articles on core topics where a five times expansion is extremely difficult so in a way encourages editors to ignore core articles and focus on lesser important new articles. It needs to change. I believe the rules surrounding CORE articles should be changed to a x 2 expansion like BLPs. its important we encourage editors to expand them not punish them for doing so by refusing to let them on the front page because of petty rules.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  09:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I know exactly what you mean, Dr. Blofeld. For me, DYK is like the Wikipedia's own fresh fish market... Speed is its typical feature and its hallmark. Anybody who wants timely delivery, needs to nominate their article for GAN instead, and the FAC ultimately. But, let's see what Orlady has to say about this. Poeticbent  talk  19:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Remarkably, the article has been expanded over 5x beginning on October 9th. That's remarkable because it's hard to do that with an article that was already rather large. I haven't reviewed the new content, but it looks to me like this nomination is eligible for DYK consideration. However, I'd like to point out that the hook has a problem; calling something "most important" is inherently a judgment that should not be stated as if it were an accepted fact. This kind of fact either requires some sort of attribution or an indication of how this "importance" is/was measured. --Orlady (talk) 12:47, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * "Importance" was measured by number of available sources, the status of the city, one of the busiest in all of Africa, and page roughly 2400 hits a day on average, clearly a core article. In regards to hook though I agree, how about:

ALT1: ... that in 2009, Fatima-Zahra Mansouri was elected the first female mayor of Marrakech? (See ALT4 below)

May start Mansouri later. "DYK is like the Wikipedia's own fresh fish market" LOL, good analogy..♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  10:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I just started the Mansouri article, so have linked her name in ALT1. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Orlady—that's a good point, about the hook. I'm also not sure it's supported: the CIA World Fact book referenced for that fact only seems to mention Marrakech once, and then only to give its current population. Looking back, I see this sentence is left over from the pre-expansion article, and should probably be removed. I'm striking the hook; once an ALT (or two) are proposed, we can put out the reviewer red arrow and get this moving. (Not a DYK criterion: there are five paragraphs in the intro; WP:LEAD says generally the maximum is four.) BlueMoonset (talk) 14:05, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Lead does need a trim, but so does the article in preparation for GA..♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  10:37, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As notable exception to our eligibility criteria, a fresh new hook would certainly make a difference following the article 5x expansion. Poeticbent  talk  18:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg Good to go on ALT1. (See below) Everything checks out. Consider also my own ALT2 hook below. Same thing, but more interesting I think. Inline citation just added. (See ALT4 below)
 * ALT2: ... that in 2009, Fatima-Zahra Mansouri became only the second woman in Morocco's history to be elected mayor of a city called Marrakech? (See ALT4 below)
 * Poeticbent talk  20:31, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Drop a city called, people will have heard of it LOL.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  20:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You know what I mean, Dr. Blofeld ... any Moroccan city, period. See my ALT3 below:
 * ALT3: ... that in 2009, Fatima-Zahra Mansouri became only the second woman in Morocco's history to be elected mayor of a city, i.e. Marrakech? (See ALT4 below) Poeticbent  talk  20:49, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * ALT4: ... that in 2009, when Fatima-Zahra Mansouri was elected mayor of Marrakech, she became only the second woman in Morocco's history to be elected mayor of a Moroccan city?♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  20:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg Good to go on ALT4. Congratulations. Poeticbent  talk  21:09, 28 October 2012 (UTC)