Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 12

Selection commentary and "Unused Suggestions" experiments
We've been running this for a while now, and I think it's possible to get a feel for how effective it's been. I find that the additional commentary being made on nominations which are passed over is often confusing for nominators, adds unneccessary clutter to the page and rapidly gets out of date and even more confusing as other nominations are added and removed. It also adds unneccessary additional workload to the updating admin's task. I suggest that we restrict commentary to technical and stylistic matters regarding the nominations during their tenure on the page and abandon this "skipped because ..." commenting. If nominators wish to know why one of their noms was not used, they can ask the updating admin directly. It's a much better and more personal way of informing nominators if necessary.

I also don't think the Unused Suggestions section is of any use. I argued against its introduction above, so I won't repeat my arguments again, other than to say it also adds unneccessary clutter to the page. It is also frequently out of date and very poorly maintained. As I write, there are entries still in the main section from 12 July, and the Unused Suggestions sections has entries going as far back as 6 July. This is all needless redundancy and should be abandoned. As before, if nominators wish to know why an entry wasn't used, they can ask the updating admin directly. I'm off to clean up the talk page now ... :-( -- Cactus.man  &#9997;  08:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Copied Lar's comments from above
 * Note: I've been doing this a while now and it adds significantly to the time the update takes me. Further I've had at least one user take affront at my comment as to why his nom wasn't selected, although it wasn't the most comprehensive comment, I could have done better. On the other hand it does seem to get the hooks improved and so forth in some cases... So I'm thinking this is mixed, at best. I find I haven't been commenting on any noms above where I stop at all! And if the update lags, the ones I am taking and not taking are about to fall off the 5 day ledge because the update frequency has been low.


 * On balance I'd cut it as extra work and instead encourage people to take a few min here and there to look and comment on noms.++Lar: t/c 15:59, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, commentary during the tenure on the page is perfectly adequate and less confusing. Once the 5 days is up and they're not used, they get removed. Keep it simple, no need for over complication. Any queries can be addressed directly to the updating admin - after all, that's why we have talk pages, right? And it's a much better form of communication than a (necessarily) short one liner on the template page. -- Cactus.man  &#9997;  08:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree that both of these sections have not panned out, really. We've given them a fair shake now, I feel. 3 or 4 times now I have had to explain at some length about a comment I've left on why something wasn't (yet) selected, because it confused a nominator. I'm not opposed to commenting when it makes sense but not for every unselected item. I think it has introduced a bias as well, I tend to take the bottom most items, with only rare exceptions, because that reduces the number of items I have to comment on. That's probably not a good thing either. Anyone else find they're biased that way? So in summation I think we should discontinue this practice, and undo the changes in description of how things are done to stop asking folk to do it, and drop the unused suggestions section. ++Lar: t/c 11:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the "unused suggestions" section is pointless and clutters up the page. It might be nice to have some additional time, but "until the nominator is satisfied with the replies"? Nah. I'll try and keep it cleaned up some. -- LV (Dark Mark)  20:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's wait to see if anyone objects and if not, ditch it. ++Lar: t/c 22:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The page is much tidier and manageable now, thanks LV. The unused suggestions section was introduced without discussion, and I think this thread has been here long enough now. Support the removal. -- Cactus.man  &#9997;  13:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Who added the "contested suggestions" section to each day? That's an interesting twist but I'd like to hear more about it here if possible. In some cases we seem to have two sections on one day even. ++Lar: t/c 19:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Update Frequency
I still think we should update more often, we are not using valid suggestions. It isn't particularly fair. H ig hway Return to Oz... 13:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * While I agree, this is a volunteer effort and requires admins that want to take the time to do it. I think you did fine to ask folk once but it may not be effective to do that too many times or people might be annoyed. People do the updates as time and interest allow. Maybe we need more PR about why this is a good part of the project.. ++Lar: t/c 19:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

DYK bullets suck (moved from Talk: Main Page)
DYK looked better without the bullets a few months ago. Why use them along with an ellipsis starting each line ? Ugly and superfluous. -- 64.229.179.114 06:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:Did you know would be the best place to suggest layout changes to the DYK box. --Sam Blanning(talk) 08:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Can anyone here get rid of the ugly bullets ? --64.229.231.181 18:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * To help the anon, here are the two examples.


 * Hope this helps. -- LV (Dark Mark)  18:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, LV. I think DYK would look better if each bullet is replaced by an ellipsis. But is there a way to keep the indenting ? Indenting is important as the text wraps. DYK is not as wide on the Main Page. -- 64.229.231.181 19:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I have table-ised and added a unbulleted but indented version. I think I prefer with bullets. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, ALoan. Maybe it's my browser, but I don't see the indenting. I was expecting the ellipsis where the bullet was, with the second line of each item starting underneath the 'a' of "... that". This is how I remember DYK from a few months ago. -- 64.229.231.181 19:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've had another go above. Perhaps someone knows an easier way to do it? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Meh, I think I still like the bullets. Makes the items easier to see the start of. (Wow, what a terribly constructed "sentence".) -- LV (Dark Mark)  19:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Bad sentence or not, I totally agree, stick with the bullets. They are important because they maintain visual consistency on the Main Page, but also clearly delineate the start of each new item. -- Cactus.man  &#9997;  19:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I went back a couple thousand edits and found a line of wikicodes from here that may be useful

< ul style="text-indent:-1em;margin:0 0 0 1em;padding:0;list-style-type:none;list-style-image:none">
 * It's not part of the current wikicodes. I don't know what that means, though. --64.229.231.181 19:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Was this previously without bullets? I guess of the 4 above, I like with bullets best... but am not averse to change if not having bullets means we get a more pleasing layout. ++Lar: t/c 19:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I think, on balance, I still prefer the bullets, particularly as 2 of the other 3 main sections at the top of the Main Page (ITN and OTD) use them too. Presumably the &lt;ul> tags worked with some &lt;li> tagsm like this:

Bit of a hack, that. And -1em looks a touch too much. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, thank you very much for trying the different formats. IMO, the bullets, basically giant dots, each followed by three small dots, look silly. However, if the admins running DYK prefer the bullets, I don't have much else to say except that it doesn't look too good right now. -- 65.95.106.143 19:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Update!
Could someone please update DYK? The things have been sitting there for quite a while, and the suggestions are languishing. Cheers ASAP, H ig hway Return to Oz... 11:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It's been up for 22 hours now. H ig hway Return to Oz... 15:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's been updated. If you see it go a while feel free to ping various admins or ask on the admin noticeboard... I wouldn't panic till 36 hours though. ++Lar: t/c 22:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I pinged quite a few admins. ;) I would do it if I could. H ig hway Return to Oz... 22:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Where's the edit history??
I clicked on "history" at Recent_additions_20 to find out who attempted to add Edgeworth's limit theorem (while failing to actually link to that page!). It seems that edit history is only for the template. How can I find the relevant edit history? Michael Hardy 22:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know&action=history? I am not sure what you are talking about. Can you be more specific? Thanks. -- LV (Dark Mark)  23:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A question
Why is this only for new articles? heqs 23:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Policy. The FA process is for older articles that deserve to be highlighted for being really good, and this process is for remarkable newly created ones. ++Lar: t/c 01:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Where's this "policy"/rationale stated? Was this always the case (since DYK was started)? My own thought is that it would be better to not restrict it to new or hugely revamped articles. Brand new contributions should generally not be featured (at least not on the main page). Articles containing such remarkable facts should be in slightly more "stable" versions. heqs 11:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Boy Scout nomination
A DYK nomination was made for the Boy Scouts, with the interesting fact that the uniforms were designed by Oscar de la Renta. I think it was a worthy DYK. The nomination was made on the July 26, though the article was "expanded" (previously was a redirect) on July 24. The date discrepancy was pointed out, but it was not moved to the 24th (until I noticed it yesterday and made a copy to the 24th, when it was still w/i the 5 day window). It seemed that all of the objections were addressed and it was viewed as a good add. However, it seemed to be passed over in favor of earlier articles still on the list. In the meantime, its time "expired" and it was removed by HighwayCello for expiry. Though "5 days" have passed, I think that it should still be considered for the next update, as it appears that it was only a miscommunication that kept it off the page. &mdash; ERcheck (talk) 21:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There isn't an exception to it really, and I'm not quite sure how stubby it was before. H ig hway Return to Oz... 21:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, it was a redirect until the 24th, but it's still expired. And if you had a problem with my action, you can always come to my talk page if you wish to discuss what I did. Cheers, H ig hway Return to Oz... 21:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with your actions (see my comment on your talk page), I was just trying to chronicle the things that took place and noting that it was removed due to expiry.    Your help on DYK is appreciated. &mdash; ERcheck (talk) 23:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

We tend to try to take earlier articles when we can so it may well have been passed over a couple times for apparently being newer than it actually was, and then maybe there was only an update or two when it was really old and should have been given high priority. What gets picked is a function of who is picking, and the more times we update the more articles get picked... so that means the more admins we can get involved in picking, the better each article's chances of having some time on the front page are (although it is a shorter time to be sure). Not every article gets picked every time, don't despair. In this case I'd consider making an exception because of the confusion, today it's only one day over. But we have to be sensitive to not making too many exceptions, the process should be perceived as being as fair as we can make it. Hope that helps and happy editing... right now we are 22 hours in since the last update and definitely due... SO, ERCheck I hope after you pass your adminship you'll consider doing a few updates yourself, we can always use the help.... ++Lar: t/c 22:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Since I've been a party to the request, I would not make this particular update myself. I'm hoping that you or the next updating admin will consider the special circumstances.  As for helping with DYK, I am certainly interested....as of this moment, the RFA is still open.  I'll check back later. &mdash; ERcheck (talk) 23:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We tend to discourage picking your own requests (had a bit of a contetremps about that a while back) but just having a request pending doesn't preclude you from doing an update! Just pass your own over to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. ++Lar: t/c 23:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I asked at WP:AN, but I don't see anything happening. Unfortunately, I won't be able to update it for a while, but I'll keep helping out. ;) H ig hway Return to Oz... 22:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for asking HC... I would do it but I'm pretty heads down and don't have the 40 min it takes me. ++Lar: t/c 23:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Samir did it...again. H ig hway Return to Oz... 10:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering...
...whether some WikiMagic can be added to the template. I mean the template would be much more interesting if it was just a bit randomatic - i.e. showing random five from DYKs currently in the selection pool (let's say from the past five days). I understand it would require a rather complex mechanism to work behind the scenes, but after all, this is the front page!

I mean - DYKs found appopriate for the front page would be added to the base by admins, divided into two cats - with and without pics. Some elaborate script would then choose one current DYK with a pic and four without and display such a set every time a template would be loaded by somebody (different set, obviously, that's the goal). After five days since the date of the original creation/expansion of the article, the DYKs would be removed from circulation either automatically by the script or manually bya admins.

Some portals use mechanisms that alternate the shown "selected article" or "selected picture" etc. according to the day of the week. Can't this variable that adopts the value of "currentday" or whatever be set to "random"? If not, how about a combination of day/hour/minute/second, which would generate fairly randomatic numbers too?

I guess those are just some loose ramblings, and I hope I managed to get my idea accross - perhaps some WikiScript or JavaScript magician can say whether it would be feasible to do that? Bravada, talk - 19:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, randomization is possible. See Featured content for an example of a page which shows a random featured article and featured picture on each page refresh. Something similar could be done for DYK if people were interested in it. Could potentially have the benefit of not having to update so often - just put a couple dozen DYK items in the 'randomization hopper' and change them every few days. --CBD 22:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply! I was thinking about it more, however, and I figured out we would need some solution to sort entries by topic (so that you wouldn't end up with six Eurovision songs or French residences at the same time), as well as another one that would make the template of the size needed on a given day (according to the length of Today's featured article, In the news and On that day) etc. so it might be even more complicated than it seemed to me originally. After some more experience with the current solution I guess it's not that bad with it staying that way - that said, if somebody would like to approach this challenge, it would be sweet! Bravada, talk - 22:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Some confusion with the guidelines
"at the bottom of the date the article was created (not the date you submit it here), with the newest dates at the top" Some users seem to misinterpret the sentence "with the newest dates at the top" and then put their article on the top of the specific date. How about removing the mentioned sentence? It doesn't seem needed. People can see for themselves that which date is which. Aran|heru|nar 15:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible image copyvio
A possible copyvio was reported at WP:AN/I on Image:Laas Gaal.jpg. Because it was so exposed on the front page, I speedily removed it from the DYK template, so now there isn't an image there. I've also removed it from the Laas Gaal article. I hope this was the right thing to do, but I thought it best to act quickly. -- I@n 14:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Because DYK, ITN and the "On this Day" templates have several entries listed, it has been quite common to swap different images on them throughout the day. Ideally, if one removes an image from a main page template, he or she should immediately replace it with another. Luckily, the Simca Aronde entry had a commons image on its article, so I was able to put it on DYK when I noticed you removed it. Best. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 14:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I was doing that but saw that you beat me to it. Thanks -- I@n 15:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

40 hours between updates?
Seriously, is this supposed to happen?
 * Update 1, August 26, 02:37
 * Update 2, August 27, 18:38

I get that admins have lots to do, but this is just a bit ridiculous. &mdash;smably 00:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we've picked up the pace a bit now. The last 4 updates have been right at the 6 hour mark. -- Samir   धर्म 08:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. On a more positive note, I should mention that I love DYK, and I really appreciate the work that the admins do to keep it updated. I just wish I could do something about the long time between updates (can I?). →smably 13:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:CITE and DYK noms
I've turned down many DYK articles because of lack of references (or just having external links). I want to one up the reference requirement: would anyone support requiring DYKs to be in-line cited per WP:CITE? I think it would encourage article quality. -- Samir  धर्म 08:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this is reasonable. At the very least, I think there should be a requirement that the facts mentioned in the summary are inline-cited. →smably 13:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Considering that DYK featured articles are just Work-in-progress, we should not insist on in-line citations. Also, most of the new articles are created by new editors, hence it wd be tough for them. However, references are a must for an article to be featured on DYK. --Gurubrahma 06:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem is that we've had DYK's taken down lately because the tagline on the main page while "referenced" at the bottom, is quoted to be incorrect. Perhaps, as Smably says, a stipulation that the tagline specifically must be referenced?  BTW, good to see you back on DYK Guru -- Samir   धर्म 12:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Inline citations are increasingly the norm, and we should teach people to use them.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't. Quite many DYK articles I do are translations from the Polish WP - how would you like inline citations to be done in that case? Rather than mount formal requirements (which already preclude a number of very interesting, well sourced facts like ones from Good Articles), I'd rather see the updating admins actually read the articles rather than pass terribly inappropriate ones such as the one on full-body scan. Regards, Bravada, talk - 15:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Part of the fun in updating DYK is reading the articles! My favourite part of the update -- Samir   धर्म 05:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It's a good candidate for activities that can provide the most fun with your clothes on ... I really must get out more :-) -- Cactus.man   &#9997;  10:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You have to wear clothes to do updates? I did not know that. ANYway, I always used it as a criteria if came down to an either or. Not sure I'd use it as a full blocker the way copyvio or currently on AfD might be. ++Lar: t/c 14:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think he said you have to be wearing clothes, just that you can be. 65.205.28.104 20:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)