User:Rcsprinter123/Signpost reports/Investigative report 2

Welcome to the second of our six special reports looking at some of the processes around Wikipedia that rarely get any coverage and the challenges facing the project. This week we take an in-depth look at Did you know?, the section on the main page displaying hooks from recently created articles selected through nominations at the template talkpage.

For many editors, DYK is a key step in producing an article. For people trying to work their way up into getting featured content, it often follows an "article creation, DYK, GA, FA" pattern. Some editors get a nomination for every single article they make, and nominate others' articles. Medals are occasionally awarded for getting 25, 50, 100 DYK credits and if your page gets more than five thousand views with its stint on the main page it will be added to the stats page. A prestigious project indeed.

So I wondered, why then, have we not covered this before? A quick look down our archive (have a go yourself) shows not a mention. It is referred to multiple times in other reports; yet has never had a full-length feature to itself. Many of the people working regularly at DYK now can show us what we've been missing.

History
Template:Did you know was first created by (now inactive) in early 2004 with a hook about pencil sharpeners. This was followed two days later by a second hook involving the hemiptera genus of insects. Soon the hooks were being swapped around frequently and it turned into a proper business.

It was first protected on 4 February 2005, almost a year after its creation, by, who was the delegate of the featured article system, as it was a main page template with high traffic. The next month, an explanatory page Did you know was created by ; to become the first of a whole host of pages now affiliated with the high-profile page.

The nominations page Template talk:Did you know allows editors to put forward their own articles to be featured with a review process taking into account length, newness, sourcing, interesting hooks and an optional image. It was created September 2004, brainchild of, as an easy nominating alternative.

Controversy
However, the process has seen more than its fair share of controversy over the years as some editors felt that as Wikipedia grows older it needed to move its focus from quantity [of articles] to quality [of the same]. Many proposals for reform were put forward, including one by to make eligible for re-featuring WP:Good Articles and change the mainpage blurb from "newest articles" (which 5x expansions aren't anyway) to "newest and newly-improved articles". This was proposed as a trial in July 2011.

Also proposed was different ideas such as moving the minimum article character bar from 1500 to 2500 (nominated by ) or even more radical changes like replacing the DYK slot on the main page with new Good article DYKs and to demote the current system to a sub page (nominated by ). Although many radicals were proposed, none were accepted and ground into a current system.

As well as the RfCs that took place which are described above, there were also editors vouching for the nominations system to be changed. Again, many alternatives were suggested but none were taken on board. For instance, this radical idea involved a "lottery" system to decide the daily hooks rather than people nominating articles they have written, amid concerns the system simply wasn't working. Other proposals included a "ticklist" way of reviewing instead of the review quickly looking through and marking it approved - after discussion here initiated by ; implemented in September 2011 (confirmed in this discussion) and then removed a week later after a review revealed the community was not in favour. The template used to do this was DYK article checklist now deprecated. An example nomination is here. You can see the way it enables you to check each aspect of the nomination properly individually, however the process was stuck off.

Many nominations suffer from copyright violations (commonly known as a copyvio) which causes them to be rejected. Certain editors are vigilant in this area and comment on the nomination pages with this affect. Again, this is another reason DYK is controversial, as there are concerns pages which slip through could be shown on the main page.

DYK today
The process now runs pretty smoothly on a day-to-day basis; the article is nominated, and then reviewed. If it is promoted it is taken to a preparation area and then added to the queue. After being on the main page for around six hours it is added to Recent additions where it stays until the end of the month, which is then archived. The user has a credit posted to their talk page and can display this on their userpage if they wish.

I wanted to find out what some of the DYK regulars thought about how it goes. We spoke to, , and in a little interview below:


 * When you review nominations regularly, do you often find a large backlog of unreviewed nominations because not enough people have been reviewing them? Do you think more people do need to be reviewing?
 * PumpkinSky: Yes, but that's a problem all over wiki, not enough active users. This touches on our larger wiki-wide issues of editor retention and policy reform. A large reason nominations end up on the longer backlog is that those are the ones with more complicated issues and most reviewers don't like working on those.
 * LauraHale: Yes, there is often a backlog and as a frequent nominator, this can be frustrating as it means my own nominations take a long time to go through the queue as they sit around unreviewed. I've taken to trying to personally address the unreviewed backlog recently by reviewing a large number to speed along my own bulk nominations.  As for more people reviewing, it would be nice to see that.  Wikipedia tends to have people who specialise in certain tasks and who enjoy certain areas... like doing FAC reviews or GAN reviews or doing AFC reviews.  If we had one or two people who liked reviewing and who did it well without the expectation of using them for QPQ, it would be fantastic.  Not necessary at this time but still fantastically helpful.
 * Crisco1492: Definitely. However, it's not only because of the lack of reviewers (a problem throughout the Wiki). Partially it's because older nominations can be buried between other old nominations that have major issues, and as such go unnoticed. Many reviewers have begun reviewing the newest nominations as those are often the ones with fewer issues.


 * What sort of articles do you find no problem with and promote the most?
 * PumpkinSky: It's more a matter who the main writer was, ie the quality of their new articles, not the topic.
 * LauraHale: It comes down to nominators and reputation instead of article topics. There are a few writers where, after having reviewed 10 to 20 of their DYK noms, you can begin to trust they will not make copyvios, the length will be good to go, the sources reliable and the article length will be good.  Building up a good reputation helps.
 * Crisco1492: Exactly as Laura said. There are some DYK regulars who have consistently shown themselves to be trustworthy, although it's preferable to still do spotchecks because everyone makes mistakes. Generally the nominations with the most issues are from new editors or on contentious topics, in which case instability can cause the DYK nomination to fail or be put in a holding pattern.


 * Which kind of nomination do you often decline? Which type generally has more copyvios?
 * PumpkinSky: Similar to the answer immediately above, no one type has more or less copyvios, that's more a result of the main writers on the article. If these are not fixed speedily they are declined. Others get declined because they don't meet the DYK guidelines, such as not being new or expanded 5x.
 * LauraHale: To be honest, and probably a bit discriminatory non-good faith, articles about Bahrain and articles about India tend to be major redflag areas. Articles by new users without an established reputation can also be problematic.  If you're a reviewer and quickpassing these with a cursory glance, you may be asking for trouble as I know some people look hard at these.
 * Crisco1492: Per Laura, again. Many of the more enthusiastic editors from India have close paraphrasing issues, although it is not limited to that area. One of the largest DYK contributors, who was eventually blocked for his copyright violations, was active in articles about US politics. Since then we've worked hard on getting rid of such issues, but there can still be issues.


 * How could people get involved more with DYK and how would you encourage them?
 * PumpkinSky: Tell them about how interesting it is to read about lots of varied interesting topics. I've found that fascinating ever since I was a grade-schooler.
 * LauraHale: If you are either a content producer or a content reviewer, then your involvement would be appreciated. In both cases, I'd suggest they get involved by reading the reviewing criteria and looking at articles that get passed by regular contributors.  The encouragement is seeing something you reviewed or wrote on the main page.  As a content producer, I would highlight how thrilling this is as a way to validate the hard work you put into Wikipedia writing.
 * PumpkinSky: For me any any that is a ethnic or POV warrior battleground gets extra attention.
 * LauraHale: Oh same.  Political ones need to be looked at carefully.  Puffery and hatchet jobs are both problems.  Sourcing also becomes a problem.  Anything that describes some one as a terrorist needs a neutrality check and careful consideration.  They often also require more extensive plagiarism checks.  Often, they get passed over by other reviewers and feel like a risk to review because of the potential to blow up in your fact.  Any quick pass with out commentary on it will likely raise eyebrows and bring additional scrutiny to your own nomination and future reviews.  DYK is very much built on reputation.
 * Crisco1492: I'd just remind them that they would be able to introduce a generally unknown topic (or major topic, depending on how big the expansion is and the condition of the old article) to a wider audience. It is satisfying to know that several thousand people have taken the time to learn something they wouldn't have otherwise.


 * Is there anything else you would like to say on the topic?
 * PumpkinSky: As your statements above say, DYK has gone through many changes and discussion recently and I think it's better now because of it.
 * LauraHale: When done right, DYK reviewing can be WP:GAN-lite. We check for copyvios, that the article is fully cited, that none of the images contain copyvios, that there are no major BLP problems and that articles generally comply with WP policy.  (It is just when reviews are not done right that we run into problems.) DYK has come a long way but does a great job promoting content and giving contributors feedback on their work.
 * PumpkinSky: Quite true. A couple days ago I told someone he should nom his article for GAN, then I helped him get it ready. This new article was truly impressive.
 * For this above: If you're a Wikipedian looking to get a press pass based on your Wikipedia work, DYK is one of the ways to sell your Wikimedia credentials. This is something I've done with sports.  You can tell the person you're asking press permission from that you do WP:DYK work and a desire to have pictures for an article you will take to DYK is one of the reasons you want access.  The thing to remember if you do this is always be very, very, very, very careful to not promise that your DYK nomination will ever appear on the front page of Wikipedia. Some of the media coverage related to DYK is documented at Wikiversity on my userspace.


 * Crisco1492: I personally consider DYK one of Wikipedia's surest ways for eliminating systemic bias, as it allows us to focus on under-covered topics and areas, including but not limited to Africa, Asia, and South America. There are, of course, plenty of American and European topics, but my experience is that DYK puts more information about underrepresented areas on the main page then any other section.

Next week we will be focusing on the block policy. In the meanwhile, keep an eye out for budding DYK new articles, read the hooks on the main page and try to contribute a review.