Wikipedia:Did you know/DYKcheck

If you have never submitted a Did You Know nomination before, you don't have to master DYKcheck. But maybe you should; DYKcheck automates prose character counting and some of our other rules, so you don't have to learn them. If you routinely approve hooks for others, you should install DYKcheck. If not, you can use DYKcheck without installing it. DYKcheck (or prosesizebytes, or prosesize, which give the same count) is the preferred method for counting characters in an article's prose, and usually carries the most weight at DYK, because it counts only the prose as defined by Did You Know rules, thus avoiding mistakes and providing an impartial settlement of disputed counting.

Counting prose characters without DYKcheck
You'll probably make a mistake trying to count this way, but you'll be close. Use a free website like this, or an external software program that has a character-counting feature. For example, if you are using Microsoft Word, select the text from the article page (or, in the case of "Did you know" nominations, the DYK talk page) – not the edit page containing Wikitext – then copy and paste it into a blank document. Delete everything DYKcheck doesn't count: infoboxes, categories, references, lists, tables, block quotes, headers, images and captions, the "See also" section if any, Table of Contents, edit buttons, "Citation needed" and similar superscripted text, and reference link numbers like [6]. Click "Tools" ("Review" in Office 2007), then "Word Count", and note the "Characters (with spaces)" figure. Other word processing programs may have a similar feature. For Mac users, Apple has a Word counter widget available for Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Note: The character counts indicated on "Revision history" pages are not accurate for DYK purposes as they include categories, infoboxes and similar text in articles, and comments and signatures in hooks on the suggestions page.

Using DYKcheck if you have a username
Copy and paste the following phrase:  to your common.js page and save it. If you don't have a common.js yet, it will be created when you click on the red link to the left. If you do have a common.js page, the link to the left will be blue. In that case, click on the blue link and add the phrase to your common.js page. If you only wish to add DYKCheck to one particular skin, then go to your skin.js page and put that line in it. There will be a scary warning about malware, but it hasn't hurt me any.

After saving, you have to bypass your browser's cache to see the changes. Mozilla/Safari: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), Internet Explorer: press Ctrl-F5, Opera/Konqueror: press F5. For other browsers, see Bypass your cache.

If you are on a Wikipedia page that starts with Wikipedia:, User:, Talk:, or anything with ":", go to a normal page like Dog. You should then see the words "DYK check" on the left side of your screen, assuming you use the default Preferences. Go to the page you want to check and click "DYK check". The "Prose size (text only)" figure is the figure used by Did You Know. The text actually counted is colored yellow. If DYKcheck finds errors, they will be listed at the top of the page and colored red. The DYKCheck can take several seconds to compile the conclusion so watch for that.

Using DYKcheck without installing it
With or without a username, you can use the DYKcheck tool without installing it; just put this"javascript:importScript('User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.js'); dykCheck;"into your URL and hit Enter when you're viewing a mainspace page.

The above was fine at the time it was written, but it does not work for most modern browsers.

Here are instructions for a few popular PC browsers. In all cases, start out on the page you want DYKcheck to analyze, then enter the code  where directed below. The first time you do this may produce an error, but you can still click on "DYK check" in the sidebar under "Tools". Or you can enter the code again and it will work without having to click on "DYK check".
 * Chrome or Edge:   (on Mac, Command Option j) – enter code at the   (top of the page).
 * Firefox:   – enter code at the   (bottom of the page).

Prosesize
Prosesize is similar to DYKcheck, but it only counts characters of prose without checking anything else, so it's a little bit faster. To install prosesize, go to the "Gadgets" tab of your Preferences; under "Browsing", check "Prosesize". When installed, the prosesize button is labeled "Page size".

More information about DYKcheck
See User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.